May You Live in Inneresting Times: The Neil Young Voting Thread (deadline July 8)

I'm just surprised that for a cranky iconoclast with around 50 or so albums to his name, you can generally count on not hearing anything from 40 of them, if not more. But he totally seems the type of dude who would intentionally *not* plays his hits, but he typically does.

um except when he's playing an unreleased album in full

he goes deeper in the acoustic sets -- at least on those chrome dreams ii shows. he even broke out a totally unreleased (and great) song from homegrown, 'try,' sometime in 2008.

the guy isn't above playing "cinnamon girl" between two new songs for people who pay a hundred bucks for the privilege, and his le noise tour seemed to have an exceptionally static set list, but i'm not sure what standard he's been set to where he can bust out unreleased tracks from 40 years ago and be a bore

like who's the cranky iconoclast who plays a song from each of his 50 albums on tour

I could have sworn the Le Noise tour, like the tour before it (Chrome Dreams II?) was more or less the same set night after night.

Well, I will say someone like Tom Waits, who rarely tours, also rarely simply pulls out the old songs. Springsteen and Dylan both go deep and surprise.

Pearl Jam goes deep.

But the difference is that Neil Young seems like the rare talent who could make something out of something everyone discounted or discarded. Like his acoustic "Trans" stuff he did on the Unplugged album.

did you just give an example of him doing something you said he doesn't do

again, he just put out an international harvesters live album and capped an album with a This Note's For You outtake. Maybe this septegenarian's live sets don't twirl unpredictably like fugazi's between each date, but they're loaded with outtakes, deep album cuts

it'd be cool if neil did some never-ending kaleidoscope show where old hands have to follow his every whim like dylan but to pretend he's just busting out the hits is pretty silly

That's not exactly what I said?

First of all, releasing belated live documents and rarities on albums is a different animal entirely. I'm talk live-live, and I never said his sets were all hits or something, just that for a guy with so much worthy stuff, much of it doesn't seem to get much action these days. But I was in particular thinking of the '80s stuff that few seem to love. Is Neil just going with the flow, or does he not like those albums very much, either? I've always wondered how major artists view their own commercial/critical failures. Like, what does Bob Dylan think of "Self Portrait?" Has he thought about it since it was released? Likewise Neil and something like the Shocking Pinks disc, or even "Greendale" or "Living With War?" Are they just things he needed to get out of his system? Did he consider them built to last?

I'm not being critical of Neil here, or at least not trying. I'm just wondering if he's ever addressed the subject in interviews.

Similarly, why does he rarely dust off stuff from "Freedom," "Ragged Glory" or "Sleeps With Angels," albums that were critical/commercial successes? Particularly the latter?

it's tough because the bigger an act's catalog get, the more material they COULD be digging up that mathematically speaking it becomes pretty much impossible to cover it all. i know after a few times of seeing Sonic Youth i became way more fixated on what they DON'T ever play than what they do. but i think with Neil part of it's that he's not as much of a well oiled machine as Bruce, who probably has like spreadsheets of what he hasn't played in a while and makes sure his band is ready for anything.

i don't know if he's addressed that in interviews. neil -- if you're reading this, we have questions. but he does certainly go deeper in his catalog than dylan. for all of dylan's supposed unpredictability on stage, he's kept his sets pretty standard for the past decade or so. every now and then he shakes things up, but he never does anything like neil -- neil played "sad movies" regularly on a tour not long ago, which isn't on any album and was only performed a handful of times in the 70s. obviously throwing a bit of a bone to the die-hards, something bob would never do. i think neil is more engaged with his past (probably due to being so involved in the archives project) than most of his peers. not that this results in all deep-cut sets, but i think he's at least aware of those songs.

neil -- if you're reading this, we have questions.

lol love the mental picture of him reading hundreds of posts, then perking up and starting to respond when someone finally says this.

Similarly, why does he rarely dust off stuff from "Freedom," "Ragged Glory" or "Sleeps With Angels," albums that were critical/commercial successes? Particularly the latter?

who cares? Sometimes you feel like reading one novel, other times you put it down.

lol love the mental picture of him reading hundreds of posts, then perking up and starting to respond when someone finally says this

Young and Bowie are the only grizzled vets I can imagine doing this for real btw

here's what we do: every time we finish the results for a tracks poll, we boil it down to the songs the artist hasn't played live in a while and send it to them

especially if they're post-1990

neil -- if you're reading this, we have questions.

Great! Maybe he'll even send in a ballot (which would simultaneously answer some of those questions).

This may or may not be related, but in the past couple of years I've seen Yo La Tengo, Wire, and Magnetic Fields, and each time I was really hoping to hear a bunch of specific songs--maybe 15-20 in all. I got to hear five of them, at most. Maybe I just caught them on the wrong nights, I don't know. Or maybe Wire doesn't play "Mannequin" for reasons I'll never know.

eh if you go in with an entire setlist in mind and expect even half of it you're just setting yourself up for disappointment.

with more and more acts doing the our-biggest-album-in-its-entirety circuit or special all-request shows and many of the rest doing perfunctory new stuff with hits sets, it feels like the number of bands who actually put effort into setlists as something other than crowdpleasers or promotional opportunities is at an all-time low.

yo la tengo's probably one of the more adventurous bands when it comes to setlists, at least in my experience. i don't think there's anything in their catalog that they wouldn't at least give a go.

and they'll play neil's deep cuts for him, if need be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uD4MrJ6PuM

I remember an old David Spade bit on this subject:

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/93/93supdate.phtml

I know I won't get half. But I do want "Mannequin."

when I saw his Greendale tour he performed the entire album except one song and (of course) "Powderfinger," "Cortez the Killer," and "My My." Dat's dat.

well the rock operas always get played as one piece

on the greendale euro tour (where he debuted the thing) his second sets were kind of amazing, filled with deep cuts. i've got this comp and it's amazing

01. Lotta Love (Hamburg 4/29)
02. On The Beach (Hamburg 4/29)
03. Cortez The Killer (Hamburg 4/29)
04. Expecting To Fly (Bergen 4/25)
05. Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Frankfurt 5/01)
06. Don't Let It Bring You Down (Oslo 4/23)
07. Old Man (Oslo 4/23)
08. Hitchhiker (the request) (Hamburg 4/29)
09. Hitchhiker (the song) (Berlin 4/30)
10. Pocahontas (London 5/18)
11. "At least you showed up this time" (London 5/18)
12. Feel Your Love (London 5/18)
13. Dangerbird (Frankfurt 5/01)
14. Like A Hurricane (Amsterdam 5/08)
15. Mother Earth (Munich 5/05)
16. Needle And The Damage Done (Copenhagen 4/27)

Disc 4 (2nd set material)

01. Lookout For My Love (Linz 5/04)
02. Don't Be Denied (Linz 5/04)
03. From Hank To Hendrix (Hannover 5/09)
04. "Stephen Stills took it" (Dublin 5/11)
05. Campaigner (Dublin 5/11)
06. Clear Channel Rant (London 5/19)
07. Horseshoe Man (London 5/19)
08. Birds (Dublin 5/13)
09. Long May You Run (guitar) (Dublin 5/13)
10. Ambulance Blues (Dublin 5/13)
11. After The Goldrush (organ) (London 5/18)
12. Harvest Moon (London 5/17)
13. Tell Me Why (Antwerp 5/23)
14. Razor Love (Antwerp 5/23)
15. Powderfinger (Antwerp 5/23)

Disc 5 (2nd set material)

01. Carry On Request (Stuttgart 5/07)
02. No One Seems To Know (London 5/18)
03. After The Goldrush (piano) (Stockholm 4/22)
04. Long May You Run (organ) (Milan 5/03)
05. The Old Laughing Lady (Antwerp 5/23)
06. Comes A Time (short version) (Antwerp 5/23)
07. Comes A Time (Milan 5/03)
08. Winterlong (Paris 5/24)
09. War Of Man (Stuttgart 5/07)
10. Tour "Thanks" (Paris 5/24)
11. Heart Of Gold (Paris 5/24)
12. The Philosophy Minute With Neil Young (Copenhagen 4/27)

but that twisted road tour was a little disappointing in the setlist dept. since it seems like the people who would respond best to the new material would be the people who would also respond heavily to a few deep cuts. but it was, what, "heart of gold" again?

jesus christ those two discs -- that's what I WANTED

yeah, it's a fantastic compilation, one of my fave neil bootlegs of the last 20 years or so. granted, those are deep cuts sprinkled throughout a dozen shows, but still.

expect my ballot late! i really don't know if i can do this.

how firm is the deadline? midnight sunday EST?

I saw him on the Twisted Road tour, and I can say the audience wasn't disappointed, but that probably owed more to it being his first show here in 7 or so years (I think he'd last come through for Greendale, and--not counting CSNY--the time before that was the '99 solo tour).

In that situation though, you have to remember that he's playing a bunch of new unreleased songs, so for many in the crowd the "hits" were relief . ("Oh yay, a song we know!") The closest he came to rarities were "I Believe In You" and "Hitchiker" (and I guess that could be extended to the two Le noise outtakes as well.)

xposts

I was really hoping to close it out Sunday night, take a day to double-check math (I've been tabulating as stuff comes in, but it's easy to miss something), and post the results Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday. I know there are a lot of people in line for other polls. So I appreciate that people care enough to want to get their lists just right, but I wrote early on, I wouldn't worry over it so much, just send in what you have.

But if a ballot came in Monday, while I was still tabulating, of course I'd include it--I've got a spreadsheet going, so it's pretty easy.

Wire is one of those bands that's intentionally closed the door on a lot of that old stuff. Though they did play at least a couple from the first three when I last saw them.

Those are some awesome deep cuts, Tyler! The last two or three times I've seen Neil, it really has seemed to be the same setlist from night to night, bar a rotating selection of encores. But I think that had something to do with the Demme projects.

who cares?

I care, duh. Because I like those albums. And it's not like I'm hoping for him to play some super-obscure improvised song he performed once in '72. I mean, there are fans who do that, of course. But I really do think that run of albums - "Freedom" to "Sleeps" - is up there with his best work, and wish he would dip into that well a bit.

And Neil, I know you are reading this.

Just sent my ballot.

Come on y'all, Sunday night is doable, just close your eyes and hit "send".

Similarly, why does he rarely dust off stuff from "Freedom," "Ragged Glory" or "Sleeps With Angels," albums that were critical/commercial successes?

2009 set lists had "too far gone," "rockin'" "love and only love" "mother earth," "change your mind" - are you actually looking at his setlist or just assuming?

also "mansion," "fucking up" and tons of Harvest Moon, if anything it seems like 1989-1994 gets more revisiting than anything else since the 70s

The LeNoise tour was pretty stiffly setlisted, but that tends to be the case when he's performing a difficult album that isn't even out yet. did the same "brand new material + plus some hits for that guy shrieking OLD MAN!!!" thing with harvest moon and greendale.

How often did he play those songs you mentioned? Because I do occasionally gloss over setlists, actually. But not, like, obsessively. Or obsessively enough, I guess.

http://sugarmtn.org/year.php?year=2009

since this tour all he's done is the LeNoise run and the Buffalo Springfield tour. Give the guy a break!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLAPcf4KyoA

How are Crazy Horse thought of, generally? There doesn't seem much to distinguish them from any bar band, imo, except for the bass always being mixed high and sounding slightly weird, like the kind of thing McCartney might lay down on an early take.

they just sound like Neil Young's band to me. if i've heard much loud electric NY with different backing musicians i haven't really been able to tell the difference.

as someone on here said recently, even Pearl Jam basically do their best Crazy Horse impression on Mirror Ball