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| Neil Young and Crazy Horse in Toronto, Ontario November 19 2012 |
“I Was Born In Ontario” – Neil Young triumphs in his birthplace
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| Neil Young and Crazy Horse in Toronto, Ontario November 19 2012 |
Young is a rock and roll legend and has just released his 33rd studio album named Psychadelic Pill – a double CD with a 27 minute song and two 16 minute songs. Just the way things were done in the 70’s. My favourite Neil Young moment recently was at the 2011 Juno Awards (Canada’s version of the Grammys). Young was up against commercial darlings Drake and Bieber for Artist of the Year. When Young was announced the winner he looked as shocked as anyone watching the show – he strolls up on stage and starts off his acceptance with a sincere “Now what year is this?” bring a tremendous ovation from everyone in the arena. That same arena (namely the Air Canada Centre) was the setting for tonight’s packed Neil Young and Crazy Horse show.
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| Neil Young and Crazy Horse in Toronto, Ontario November 19 2012 |
First up tonight were The Sadies – a local Toronto band that has been around for about 15 years. They had the unfortunate time slot of 7:20 but did benefit from the floors being General Admission. Although the seats were quite bare at this time there were plenty of Young fans up against the rail vying for a good spot for the headliner. Lucky for them, they got to see the legendary Randy Bachman join the band on stage for a song. I would assume Bachman is a good buddy of Young and happened to be in town watching the show. Young and Bachman recorded a song together entitled Prairie Town. Nonetheless The Sadies delivered a solid opening set and took the opportunity to rock their hometown hockey arena.
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| Los Lobos open up for Neil Young and Crazy Horse in Toronto, Ontario November 19 2012 |
The second opening band was Los Lobos – yes the La Bamba guys. Believe it or not they have been around for 39 years – although widely considered a one hit wonder by mainstream press for 1987’s massive title song from the movie La Bamba. Despite that massive success for one song the band from East LA delivers Mexican infused blues rock similiar to Carlos Santana, ZZ Top, or even Neil Young himself. They delivered a latin infused rocking blues set but alas they did not play La Bamba (like we really need to hear that song one more time). Fairly good effort but the cavernous arena was still very empty and the people in their seats were mostly apathetic.
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| Neil Young and Crazy Horse in Toronto, Ontario November 19 2012 |
The main attraction hits the stage at 9:03pm. The crowd roars to life as one of Toronto’s finest brings us back to a bygone era. An era with loud distorted electric guitars, one of liberal attitudes and popular music was not decided on popularity contests driven by votes on iPhones and YouTube views. People were capable of giving more than 3 minutes (or 140 characters) of their attention span, and musicians were artists rather than just performers. The performance was very heavy on distorted and fuzzy guitar-fueled rock. There was no doubt that tonight’s show was a throwback to days gone by and a celebration of the era that spawned Young’s musical career. Any of the songs tonight could have been born in 1972 and that was just fine for the audience. The props are fairly simple – 2 gigantic CRT (old school tube) TV’s are hanging on either side of the stage projecting the musicians throughout the night, 4 huge boxes on the back of the stage emulating Fender amps, a 20 foot tall microphone stand prop and a huge backdrop over the whole stage depicting a “crazy” horse.
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| Neil Young and Crazy Horse in Toronto, Ontario November 19 2012 |
On stage where a bunch of guys with white lab coats running around like the minions in Despicable Me. Randomly putting stuff together on stage and then the opening notes of O Canada starts and of course everyone in the audience stands at full attention and pride as they know their beloved ambassador of hard rock is due to hit the stage. One thing to note is that was the first and only time everyone in the house stood up during the night.
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| Neil Young and Crazy Horse in Toronto, Ontario November 19 2012 |
Love and Only Love kicks off the night with an alchemical mix of electricity, guitars and distortion. This is exactly what Young’s music is about and if hazy fuzzy loud rock ain’t your thing you surely have realized you are in the wrong building tonight. Powderfinger gets a stronger response than the opener probably because it is more of a radio staple. Young acknowledges the crowd by simply stating “thanks for coming folks – home sweet home – watch out for falling glass” and the third song drowns out the band as Young sings the chorus for the first time – “I was born in Ontario”. Nods of appreciation and acknowledgement from the audience because most of them were also born in Ontario – more than any audience in the world we understood what Young was singing about when he sings ” I was born in Ontario, Where the black fly bites, And the green grass grows, That’s where I learned most of what I know, Cause you don’t learn much, When you start to get old“.
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| Neil Young and Crazy Horse in Toronto, Ontario November 19 2012 |
My personal highlight of the night was the next song – Walk Like a Giant. Some might describe it as self-indulgent, monolithic, or dinosaur rock – and they would be right. This song captures everything that made the 70’s the best era for stadium rock – thunderous drums and bass setting the foundation for screeching electric guitars for over 25 minutes. Not a typo. Most of the song the 2 guitarists and the bassist (Talbot, Sampredro and Young) would jam in a small circle facing each other. Pearl Jam fans will immediately visualize my description because PJ also loves to jam in that format – certainly a tribute to their idol Uncle Neil. Although the band had this massive stage the vast majority of the night was spent with all four of them within a few feet of each other right in front of the drum kit. After about 16 minutes as the song appears to be over we are treated to a 9 minute coda (or outro to the song). As if teasing the audience when you thought it was over, the guitars would pick up again and continue the “finale”. Young even sticks his hand in one of the massive amp prop boxes causing distortion. At this point we were four songs in the concert and 55 minutes into the night!
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| A full Air Canada Center for Neil Young and Crazy Horse in Toronto, Ontario November 19 2012 |
The acoustic set started off with the very popular The Needle and the Damage Done followed by Twisted Road. Truly an exercise in musical mastery so far, the four closing songs Cinnamon Girl, Fuckin’ Up, Mr. Soul and Hey, Hey, My My really brought the familiar tunes that people crave at concerts. All four of them really charged the ACC and the distortion attack proved that Neil Young’s rock and roll idol status is beyond any doubt. The night ends with an odd choice of an encore – although we were expecting Rockin in the Free World it was not meant to be and we had to settle for a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song called Helpless which appropriately enough starts out with “There is a town in north Ontario” – a reference to Omemee the town where Young grew up after leaving Toronto at a young age.
Young delivered an incredible performance and at this point he is far outrocking Page, Plant, Jagger, Woods, Gilmour, Waters, Mercury, May, McCartney and just about any other classic name you can think of from the 70’s. While most of the stars of that era have slowed down, retired or died – Young is still caressing his guitar and emitting the same distorted thunder that he did 40 years ago with the full passion he had then. My only regret was that I opted for “cheap seats” tonight – ($70 gets you 5 rows from the ceiling these days). I won’t make the same mistake again next time.
Verdict: 4.5 out of 5 – Young delivered a hard rock set right of the mid 70’s with the energy and excitement that bands in their 20’s can only dream of having these days. Truly a momentous concert for the riff rock crowd that was made even more special by being right here in Ontario the beautiful. Thanks Uncle Neil.
I too was at the show last night and thought it was amazing. I've seen Neil about 4 times now, but never with The Horse. This was one show I was NOT going to miss. Excellent review.
AMAZING PERFORMANCE! We will go see Neil as much as we can! Also, nice review and great jobs with the setlist. By chance do you have or know where I can find the songs Los Lobos performed? Thanks, Paul
Peter from Belgium here. After reading this review, I'm seriously thinking of booking my flight to NY for next weeks gig at Barclays center…
Great review. Like anon, never seen them with the horse despite going 4 other times. Can't wait for tonight in Ottawa! The new songs Walk like a giant, Ramada Inn, Twisted Road – awesome.
Great review and great pics! What section were you in? These don’t look like bad seats at all for the price!