The Damage Done

I was listening to the local Boston and Journey—excuse me, “classic rock”—station on the radio the other day when I heard a promo for an upcoming Neil Young concert in Baltimore. Not that long ago, the prospect would’ve pricked up my ears. As it was, though, it just reminded me all over again what a prick Young had been when I’d paid a fortune to see him perform solo last May at DAR Constitution Hall.

I think I’ll quote from my own capsule review, then dissect it and elaborate.

The italicized material below is what I’d e-mailed the next day to my friend Karen, a single mother of three who I, to my subsequent regret, had convinced to spend a significant chunk of change (though not as much as I did) to catch the legendary rocker on his first DC trip in years. I’d billed Young to her as a must-see performer. (Having—significantly, it would develop—never attended one of his shows.) She seemed nearly as excited as was I when I met her and her date in the lobby before the show. Her oldest son, after all, had chosen a Neil Young song with which to serenade his mom and her new husband when she remarried. (That union proved to be a disaster. Perhaps in retrospect that had been another sign.)

Just before Karen and I headed to our respective seats—mine on the floor and hers in the rafters—she told me the amusing story of her boss’s reaction to her concert plans. The boss—whose name I’ve changed below out of a superabundance of caution for Karen—was incensed that she’d line the pockets of a lefty radical who, in his patriotic opinion, has spent his career figuratively, perhaps literally, soaking our star spangled banner in his salty Canadian spittle.

Anyway, enough back story. This is what I wrote to Karen the morning after the concert:

I hope you’re not cleaning out your desk as you read this because Harvey’s fired you for putting money in Neil “Enemy of America” Young’s wallet. Because I put the idea in your head, and my concert review is that last night totally wasn’t worth being fired over. I guess I’m still glad I was there, because I wouldn’t have wanted to have gone to my grave without seeing him perform live, but, for my money (all $193 of it), the iconoclasm that I so admire in Neil as an artist made for a terrible concert experience. I mean, it amuses me when Neil goes on binges where he records songs, and sometimes whole albums, of music he’s experimenting with or just feels like doing—tunefulness and commercial potential be damned. But then, I don’t have to—and believe me, I don’t—buy that stuff.

But it turns out that’s sort of what I bought—what we bought—last night. We paid for the privilege of attending a distortion-heavy, give-nothing-back-to-the-audience show in which even the potentially crowd-pleasing songs were oddly and off-puttingly arranged, and most of the obscure/new stuff (like that one treacly number at the piano about kids, and that wholly inexplicable encore) simply sucked. I do have to say, though, that I did get a rueful laugh or two out of watching one diehard woman try desperately to groove to that weird encore number through its various meanderings and false endings.

I’m no less enthusiastic this morning about NY and his music, but I doubt I’ll ever again buy a ticket to a show of his.

Now, let the dissection begin.

I hope you’re not cleaning out your desk as you read this because Harvey’s fired you for putting money in Neil “Enemy of America” Young’s wallet. Because I put the idea in your head, and my concert review is that last night totally wasn’t worth being fired over.

Karen graciously let me off the hook, but agreed with all aspects of my assessment. She added that she’s found the volume so “excruciating” that she’d spent part of the concert in the hallway outside the doors. When I read that, I felt bad for her, but also annoyed that our eardrums had been shattered for no good reason. I mean, I’ve been half-deaf after a Who concert yet sufficiently giddy to gladly have sacrificed the rest of my hearing for another long set. I hate to sound like my parents here, but Young’s rock ‘n’ roll was just disagreeably noisy.

I guess I’m still glad I was there, because I wouldn’t have wanted to have gone to my grave without seeing him perform live, but, for my money (all $193 of it), the iconoclasm that I so admire in Neil as an artist made for a terrible concert experience. I mean, it amuses me when he goes on binges where he records songs, and sometimes whole albums, of music he’s experimenting with or just feels like doing—tunefulness and commercial potential be damned. But then, I don’t have to—and believe me, I don’t—buy that stuff.

That passage has special resonance for me at this moment because I’ll be traveling to Raleigh this coming week. A few years ago, as I was leaving that city to drive back home, North Carolina State University’s radio station played a number from Young’s then-new CD. I don’t remember its name, but the lyrics were incredibly trite, the instrumentation unimaginative and the duration eternal. When it finally ended, I guesstimated its length at 16 minutes. It seemed to last until I’d driven over the line into Virginia. It was absolutely execrable. And hilarious.

“Woo! You go, man!” I found myself exclaiming. What I’d always appreciated about Neil Young was that he was both a musical genius—writer and performer of so many incredible songs that I hesitate to name one here for the urge to list 25—and a guy who followed his muse, not trends. He’s made brilliant albums and wretched ones, has crafted sublime melodies and unlistenable garbage. I was, at that moment, hearing a hefty dose of the latter. And it tickled me. Young didn’t give a hoot what we wanted to hear. He knew what he wanted to record. (Though why he wanted to do so is anyone’s guess.) It bespoke a certain artistic integrity and was amusing to experience from a distance. It was as if we were watching a cranky worker approach the nasty old boss, Mr Faceless Recording Industry, and kick him squarely in the ass. Only the roguish malcontent couldn’t be fired because he was worth too damn much to the company.

But Raleigh was then, and the Constitution Hall show was now. That Neil Young didn’t give much of a crap what anyone thought of his musical decisions had been way cooler when I wasn’t sitting right in front of him, desperately wishing I had back my $193, the temporarily inoperative 50% of my hearing, and my precious weekday evening.

We paid for the privilege of attending a distortion-heavy, give-nothing-back-to-the-audience show in which even the potentially crowd-pleasing songs were oddly and off-puttingly arranged, and most of the obscure/new stuff (like that one treacly number at the piano about kids, and that wholly inexplicable encore) simply sucked.

David Malitz, who reviewed the concert for the Washington Post, gently signaled his agreement in his opening line, which was, “Neil Young’s never-ending desire to live in the present can be both his most fascinating and frustrating quality.” It was from Malitz that I learned that fully half of the 18 songs Young had performed that night weren’t just obscure—they were “brand-new, unreleased compositions that have been debuted on his current week-old tour.” None of those tunes “seem likely to enter the Young pantheon,” the reviewer wryly observed. And the encore—“Walk With Me,” per a playlist I found this week on the Internet—had been, Malitz agreed, a "head-scratching” choice.

While he was far more charitable than I in his assessment of the hits Young performed—“Helpless,” “Tell Me Why” and “Cinnamon Girl” among them—Malitz noted that the new numbers had been met with “questioning whispers and staggered bathroom runs.”

Malitz noted that for much of the show (and I would include here the bizarre, choppy renditions of the hits) “no audience member was able to exercise his or her perceived $200-paid right to sing along.” Not that I feel any artist owes the audience a purely greatest-hits show, and not that I buy a concert ticket to hear my fellow patrons harmonize badly. But still. With great ticket price comes great responsibility. Or something like that.

I do have to say, though, that I did get a rueful laugh or two out of watching one diehard woman try desperately to groove to that weird encore number through its various meanderings and false endings.

That was kind of bitterly funny. You know how there’s a stupid song by some awful band that goes, “For those about to rock, we salute you”? (Or something like that?) I kind of wanted to salute that aging hippie. She was so determined to relive her own rock memories, and to show the resilience of her fandom for a 64-year-old rock god, that she was willing to make a complete idiot of herself. (And to no doubt infuriate people behind her who now couldn’t even see the source of their aural misery.)

I’m no less enthusiastic this morning about NY and his music, but I doubt I’ll ever again buy a ticket to a show of his.

As my utter lack of interest in Young’s upcoming Baltimore show suggests, the last part of that sentence is almost certainly true. Many’s the time in the months since the Constitution Hall show that I’ve felt the artist I’d really needed to see live before he stopped touring or died was the late James Brown—the crowd-pleasing, self-proclaimed hardest workin’ man in show business. Not the self-indulgent loner I’d chosen.

But what really makes me sad is that, as much as I wish it wasn’t so, I am less enthusiastic about Neil Young and his music, post-concert. The experience left a sour taste that lingers even now. Young’s best material is as great as it ever was, and I want to enjoy it as much as I ever did. But to date, I simply can’t. Several of his classic CDs—After the Gold Rush, Harvest, Rust Never Sleeps, the lovely Comes a Time—are sitting on my shelf, just waiting to be popped into the boom box or the car player. But then my mind’s eye again envisions the artist standing stolidly on the stage, treating Constitution Hall as his own private laboratory. Barely deigning to address us at all, let alone make us happy. And it still pisses me off.

When I leave Raleigh this time, the radio purposely will be turned off. It’s still too soon. Maybe next trip. I hope. I really do. But I have my doubts.