This concert, recorded at the Cow Palace in San Francisco in 1978, served as the basis both for a famous concert film and for selected tracks on a well-regarded live album. It shows Neil Young bringing to a conclusion the first phase of what would become one of the most important careers in rock and roll. Young was born in 1945 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Though suffering as a child from diabetes, epilepsy, and polio, he began playing music in high school under the influence of the folk movement and rock and roll. He played in a Toronto band called the Mynah Birds, whose lead singer – one day to be known as the funk artist Rick James – was soon called back to the United States to complete his military service. Arriving in Los Angeles at the moment when the California folk scene ran into psychedelic rock, Young joined his friend Stephen Stills in Buffalo Springfield, which played a legendary stand at the Whiskey a Go Go and had a hit with «For What It’s Worth.» Yet Young left the band in 1967 (it soon folded anyway). In ’68 he signed a solo recording contract. Young’s first album lacked a band but featured «The Loner,» heard in this concert; the second, «Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere,» featured the band Crazy Horse and opened with the very popular «Cinnamon Girl,» which Young and Crazy Horse also reprise here. In 1969, Young famously rejoined Stills, along with David Crosby and Graham Nash, for Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, whose debut album was one of the most successful of the classic-rock era. Young’s own «After The Gold Rush» reached the top ten in 1970. In this concert, Young gives that album’s title track a stripped-down solo treatment, accompanying himself on guitar and harmonica. «Harvest,» from ’72 gave Young two big hits, and «Zuma,» in 1975, featured «Cortez The Killer,» to which Young and Crazy Horse give passionate treatment here. In 1978, when this concert was recorded, the classic-rock era was decisively over and punk rock was flipping off famous late-’60’s rockers like Young, who already seemed old. Neil Young responded with «Hey Hey,» inspired in part by the Sex Pistols, and rendered here in a plaintive version that shows Neil Young establishing himself as a permanent fixture in music, at once open to and immune to changing styles.
FACE A/B:
01. SUGAR MOUNTAIN
02. I’M A CHILD
03. COMES A TIME
04. AFTER THE GOLD RUSH
05. THRASHER
06. MY MY, HEY HEY (OUT OF THE BLUE)
07. WHEN YOU DANCE I CAN REALLY LOVE
08. THE LONER
09. WELFARE MOTHERS
10. THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE
11. LOTTA LOVE
FACE C/D:
01. SEDAN DELIVERY
02. POWDERFINGER
03. CORTEZ THE KILLER
04. CINNAMON GIRL
05. LIKE A HURRICANE
06. HEY HEY, MY MY (INTO THE BLACK)
07. TONIGHT’S THE NIGHT