Neil Young & Crazy Horse – British Summer Time at Hyde Park, London 12/07/14

18 July 2014, 13:31 | Written by Thomas Hannan

(Live)

(Neil Young)

In my role as a champion of new music, I pay particular ongoing attention to the careers of Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen. I’ve spent hours contrasting the two, but the topics that have always struck me as most interesting with regards this pair of Great Modern Songwriters have to do with their attitudes towards their work and their audience. Springsteen, I’ve heard it argued, is so intent on pleasing his audience that he’ll often play it safe to the detriment of his art. Young, on the other hand, is so in thrall to his artistic muse that he often seems like he couldn’t give two shits about whether any of his fans enjoy the results or not. Arguably, the mutually admiring pair could both benefit from taking a leaf out of the other’s book at times. But if Neil Young ever plans on starting down that more crowd-pleasing path, he’s not going to be riding Crazy Horse down it.

And yet many of this evening’s crowd seem to expect him to do just that. Perhaps they’ve not read the programme correctly. This isn’t a “Neil Young” show. His backing band share equal billing, and Crazy Horse do one thing and one thing only – long, minimal, loose jams that meander for up to twenty minutes at a time, occasionally stumbling across sections of transcendent guitar solos, glorious melodic choruses or heavy metal riff wrangling. “Old Man”, “The Loner”, “Ohio” – these songs are nowhere to be seen, because they’re Neil Young songs, not Crazy Horse songs. And this is not a Neil Young gig (that lovely solo rendition of “Heart Of Gold” we get is the closest he comes to pandering to us).

Really, what did you expect? Because this is exactly the kind of aimless, cantankerous and often brilliant set you should have been primed for. While they weren’t played with a straight bat, often mutating beyond recognition from their recorded counterparts and being stretched in to three times their more recognised length, it’s unfair to call this a set devoid of hits – “Love And Only Love”, “After The Gold Rush”, “Only Love Can Break Your Heart”, “Cinnamon Girl” and “Rockin’ In The Free World” (with all 39 of its ridiculous reprises) would be dead certs for inclusion on any Neil Young Best Of, with or without The Horse. And there’s a thrill to be had beyond watching him simply play, too – by this point, I’m as invested in Neil the man as I am Neil the singer, and to see how he approaches a huge gig like this one, basically refusing to give any fucks whatsoever or pander to what anyone’s expectations of a Neil Young in Hyde Park set “should” be, well… it only endears him to me further, the mad old bastard.

Thankfully in a way, there’s a distinct thinning of the crowd come the closing twenty minute rendition of the classic minimal guitar workout “Down By The River”, which seems to leave the park populated by only those who knew what they were getting themselves in for – Crazy Horse doing what only the Horse can do. Sure, they don’t do anything else. But what I wouldn’t give for there to be more bands with their aesthetic so tightly defined that adding more strings to their bow would only detract from their force.

Setlist:
Love and Only Love
Goin’ Home
Days That Used to Be
After the Gold Rush
Love to Burn
Separate Ways
Only Love Can Break Your Heart
Blowin’ in the Wind
Heart of Gold
Barstool Blues
Psychedelic Pill
Cinnamon Girl
Rockin’ in the Free World
—-
Who’s Gonna Stand Up and Save the Earth
—-
Down by the River