Back with Crazy Horse for the first time since 1996's Broken Arrow and its subsequent tour release, Young's latest live show includes theatrical stage sets, film clips and a large cast of actors swirling around him and band, trying to re-enact the story from their latest album Greendale. Crazy Horse, hardly the most demonstrative of acts, stood centre stage somewhat dwarfed by all around them, and simply ploughed through the dirgy blues rock numbers evidenced from Greendale. Young took centre stage and spat out the politically edged lyrics and story of the Green family. For those already familiar with the album it must have been great to see him have the balls at such a late stage in his career to do such a thing with such obvious passion. A real finger to the nostalgists making up about half the audience. For those yet to buy Greendale, the whole affair came across as an amateur dramatics production, saved only by the music. After the first couple of numbers I found myself concentrating on the band and ignoring the bad acting. Greendale finds Crazy Horse in a rather more mellow and countrified vibe than normal. The whole hour long rendition of tracks from it somewhat merging into one piece from which it was hard to pick high or low points, but it sounded pleasant enough and I got the feeling that it's a Young album I will enjoy. Highlight of this whole section was the acoustic track Bandit which Young performed alone; a track that in time will undoubtedly sit in among other acoustic classics he has recorded over the decades.

At the end of the Greendale section Crazy Horse and the Actors took a bow, the cardboard sets were removed and the Band returned au naturalle to rock out like hell. This is what people had been waiting for. Inevitably with artists like Crazy Horse and Young there are songs you wanted left out, simply because of the magnitude of their back-catalogue, but the material played was momentous. They opened with Hey Hey My My and never let up. Powderfinger was next followed by a truly brilliant reading of Down By The River. By this stage Crazy Horse were on fire and jamming like hell with Young's discordant yet mesmerizing soloing to the fore. Prisoners Of R'n'R followed at which point Young lost it, striking his guitar with furious abandon and even shaking off his Baseball cap, seldom removed these days due to bald patch. Superb!

The band took a second bow before returning (Neil with cap replaced) to encore with Cinnamon Girl, the jam of which cut abruptly and segued into Fucking Up, a brilliant angry note on which to end the night.

Neil is still alive and most definitely kicking, and unlike most artists his age he still challenges and confuses his audience in equal amounts, when he could simply play his greatest hits across the enormodomes of the world. The fire still burns bright inside this old hippy.

DUCK

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