Last night, Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California hosted the first night of this year’s Bridge School Benefit concerts. Organized by rocker Neil Young and his wife Pegi, the concert has been a Bay Area staple since 1986. Neil and Crazy Horse headlined yesterday’s festivities and offered a set similar to those played on this tour, with a big hitch – the band performed unplugged. For the Rockin’ In The Free World finale, Young welcomed many of those on the bill to lend a hand.
Set: Love and Only Love, Powderfinger, Born In Ontario, The Needle and the Damage Done, Twisted Road, Singer Without A Song, Ramada Inn, Like A Hurricane, Rockin’ In The Free World (w/ entire lineup)
The second night of the 2012 Bridge School Benefit concerts takes place this evening.
Just hours before Neil Young and Crazy Horse were set to close out the second day of this past weekend’s Austin City Limits Music Festival at Zilker Park in Austin, Texas, YouTube and festival organizers quietly added the headlining performance to its webcast schedule. The bombastic set included the first Crazy Horse take on the Neil Young classic Down By The River since 2004.
If you missed the webcast, we’ve got you covered. Thanks to “happy” you can watch 3/4s of Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s set. Unfortunately it’s missing Psychedelic Pill, Down By The River and Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black) but you can stream audio of Down By The River here.
SETLIST
1.Love And Only Love
2.Powderfinger
3.Born In Ontario
4.Walk Like A Giant
5.The Needle And The Damage Done
6.Twisted Road
7.Ramada Inn
8.Cinnamon Girl
9.F*!#in’ Up
10.Psychedelic Pill – missed
11.Down By The River – missed
—
12. Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black) – missed
DURATION
01:21:36 (some song are missed – max filesize = 2GB.)
At 66 years of age Neil Young hasn’t lost his step. The legendary Canadian rocker has regrouped with his longtime backing band, Crazy Horse, this year to record two studio albums and embark on a multi-leg tour of the United States and Canada. After eight years apart, Young and the Horse have picked up where they left off with their feedback jam-heavy performances winning raves from both casual and fervent Neil fans. Dubbed “Alchemy” in a recent NeilYoung.com news item which hints that a documentary about the tour is in the works (as do these signs posted at Neil’s shows), Neil Young and Crazy Horse descended upon Zilker Park in Austin, Texas last night for a headlining set at Day Two of the ACL Fest.
Despite their propensity to extend songs for 20 minutes or longer, Neil Young and Crazy Horse haven’t experimented much with setlists on the tour. For instance, all 13 Alchemy Tour shows have started with the six-song segment. The major exception takes place in the encore slot, where the group varies which “hit” or “hits” they’ll play. Young has filled that slot with fan-favorites such as Mr. Soul, Tonight’s The Night, Roll Another Number, Like A Hurricane and Cortez The Killer, leading up to last night’s festival set. Though there wasn’t an encore per se, Crazy Horse finished off their headlining set with the first Down By The River since March 9th, 2004 and Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black).
For those looking for audio of a full Neil Young and Crazy Horse set, you can download Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s Global Citizen Festival performance straight from the TV feed in all its high-quality glory. As for Down By The River, it was over 15 minutes and potent as fuck. Take a listen.
A few days ago we posted the schedule for this weekend’s Austin City Limits Music Festival webcast on YouTube and we were bummed to see Neil Young & Crazy Horse were not listed. So we’re overjoyed to see the feedback kings’ headlining set will indeed be broadcast starting at 8PM CT (9PM ET / 6PM PT) this evening. Tune in to Channel 2 on the YouTube ACL Page and you’ll be in for a treat.
Jack White’s set will be shown on Channel 1 at 8:30PM CT tonight. Tomorrow’s webcast schedule looks great as well with HT faves Gary Clark Jr., The Avetts, The Stooges and Michael Kiwanuka among the many performances you can find on YouTube’s two channels of Austin City Limits broadcasts.
We’ve already posted the entire Foo Fighters set and the “super jam” version of Rockin’ In The Free World from Saturday’s Global Citizen Festival, as well as a full review of the event, but since Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s full set from the fest just surfaced we can’t help but post that too.
After a series of speeches, Neil Young and Crazy Horse came out and wasted no time in getting to the guitar solos. If you like gritty, dirty guitar tones, you’ll love Crazy Horse. The bulk of the set was made up of Young and guitarist Frank “Poncho” Sampedro dueling it out with feedback-heavy, often meandering solos. The Horse opened and set the pace for the rest of the performance with a 20-minute version of the Ragged Glory track Love and Only Love. Powderfinger showed off the gorgeous harmonies that are a trademark of Crazy Horse’s sound and are in vast contrast to the waves of dark and evil guitar tones. Then it was time for a double doze of the ensemble’s soon-to-be-released new album Psychedelic Pill. Born In Ontario seemed over-the-top in its sentimentality and came off like a bad song written for a tourism board, while Walk Like A Giant fit right in with the older material and is a fine addition to the repertoire.
Following a noise jam that featured many false endings that brought Walk Like A Giant to a close, Young strapped on the acoustic for The Needle and the Damage Done and Twisted Road. The crowd stood silently at attention as Neil sang The Needle and the Damage Done and gave perhaps the biggest ovation of the evening when it was done. Sampedro’s vast talents were on display once again for Fuckin’ Up as he traded deliciously overdriven riffs with Young. Neil then welcomed out Grohl and Auerbach to jam on Rockin’ In The Free World – a super-jam that lived up to its billing. K’Naan and members of Band of Horses and Foo Fighters helped out on the chorus as Young, Grohl and Auerbach each having ample opportunity digging in during the grand finale.
Set: Love and Only Love, Powderfinger, Born in Ontario, Walk Like A Giant, The Needle and the Damage Done, Twisted Road, Fuckin’ Up, Rockin’ in the Free World (w/ Dan Auerbach, Dave Grohl, K’Naan and members of Band of Horses and Foo Fighters)
In April of 2011 the Foo Fighters kicked off an extremely busy year and a half of promotional and touring appearances behind the Grammy-winning album Wasting Light. That touring cycle came to an end last night at the first-ever Global Citizen Festival in Central Park, an event that also saw Neil Young and Crazy Horse make their long-awaited return to the Big Apple after more than eight years.
The festival was put together with the aim of raising awareness to the plight of those living in extreme poverty. An array of celebrities, heads of charitable foundations and award-winning humanitarians spoke to the crowd about the festival’s mission in between acts with one of the last speeches coming from the event’s founder – Hugh Evans. K’Naan opened the concert with a quick, three-song set that included his global hit Wavin’ Flag, while Band of Horses made the most of their short time-slot with impressive takes on Knock Knock, The Great Salt Lake, No One’s Gonna Love You and The Funeral. John Legend made a surprise appearance and paid tribute to a man who spent the last decade of his life living next to Central Park – John Lennon – by delivering a stirring rendition of Imagine.
For a new, free festival, the Global Citizen Festival was well run as in-and-out was a relatively quick process and delays between sets were kept to a minimum. More vending and bathrooms would’ve been appreciated. Like the Foo Fighters, The Black Keys have spent plenty of time on the road over the last 12 months and it showed. Dan Auerbach, Patrick Carney and their formidable backing band ran through one hearty rocker after another with impressive precision including seven songs from 2011′s El Camino. Their heavy sound filled the large concert field which comfortably held the approximately 60,000 in attendance. Fuzz-tones, catchy choruses and Auerbach’s heartfelt vocal delivery were highlights of the impressive The Gold On The Ceiling, Lonely Boy, I Got Mine closing segment.
As we mentioned, Neil Young made a rare non-musical appearance last night when he was one of David Letterman’s guests on The Late Show. Young discussed his just-released memoir as well as his plans for a new high-fidelity audio format called Pono. If you missed it, we’ve got you covered.
Earlier in the show fellow Letterman guest Jimmy Fallon broke out his Neil Young impersonation…
The wait is over – we can finally hear new original studio material from Neil Young and Crazy Horse. Rolling Stone has just debuted the video for Walk Like A Giant – the first single from Psychedelic Pill. The track clocks in at over 16 minutes on the album, but for the sake of the video it’s 4:30 long.
Today Neil Young’s long awaited memoir, Waging Heavy Peace, came out. The tome received four stars from Rolling Stone and apparently dives deep in every era of the famed musician’s career with the brutal honesty we’ve come to expect from ol’ Neil. On Thursday, Young will make an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman. Lupe Fiasco is the show’s musical guest, so we’re thinking Young will sit for a chat with Dave.
Next up for Young is a set at Saturday’s Global Festival in New York City backed by Crazy Horse.
Neil Young, Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp came together way back in 1985 to organize the first Farm Aid concert with the aim of raising awareness “about the loss of family farms and to raise funds to keep farm families on their land.” Farm Aid has since become an annual affair and has raised more than $40 million over the years. The 2012 Farm Aid concert takes place on Saturday, September 22 at Hersheypark Stadium in Hershey, Penn. featuring a lineup that includes the event’s founders, Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals and ALO. For the fourth time in Farm Aid’s 27-year history, Neil Young will be backed by Crazy Horse next weekend.
The fine folks of the Farm Aid organization have just uploaded Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s entire first performance at Farm Aid, which took place at the New Orleans Superdome on September 18th, 1994, to YouTube. Highlights include a well-jammed Down By The River, Willie Nelson lending a hand on All Along The Watchtower and the fitting Country Home from 1990′s Ragged Glory LP. We’ve put together a playlist, so you can easily watch the whole set…
The lineup for this year’s Bridge School Benefit, which will be held once again at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, Calif. on October 20th and 21st, has been revealed and features an eclectic mix of megastars. Joining organizer Neil Young and Crazy Horse on the bill will be Jack White, Guns N’ Roses, The Flaming Lips, Sarah McLachlan, Foster The People, Lucinda Williams, Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers, k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang and Gary Clark Jr.
Tradition holds that most of these acts will perform acoustic sets which is particularly intriguing for the usual heaviness of Guns N’ Roses. All proceeds from this benefit, and each of the Bridge School Benefits held since 1986, will go towards operations of The Bridge School. The Bridge School “is an internationally recognized leader in the education of children who use augmentative and alternative communication and has developed unique programs and trained highly skilled professionals in the use of state of the art assistive technology.” Neil and his wife Pegi continue to organize these concerts which have featured the likes of Metallica, Tom Petty, Pearl Jam, Phish and R.E.M. over the years.
Tickets will go on sale September 14th and run from $35 to $110.
Many of our favorite bands were in action last night, so we’ve compiled the setlists from each performance as Neil Young and Crazy Horse headlined Outside Lands, the Allman Brothers Band and moe. headlined their own festivals while God Street Wine’s reunion continued at Sweetwater and many of Michael Houser’s musical friends paid tribute to the late Widespread Panic guitarist.
Neil Young and Crazy Horse @ Outside Lands – San Francisco, Calif.
We’ll have a full report on Outside Lands in the coming days, but we wanted to share Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s setlist which sure looks a lot like every other set they’ve played on the just-ended tour.
Set: Love And Only Love, Powderfinger, Born In Ontario, Walk Like A Giant, The Needle And The Damage Done, Twisted Road, Ramada Inn, Cinnamon Girl, F*!#in’ Up, Psychedelic Pill, Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)
A charity concert called Global Festival that aims to raise funds and awareness towards global poverty will be held on the Great Lawn of NYC’s Central Park on September 29th. Event organizers have put together a power-packed lineup of Neil Young, the Foo Fighters, The Black Keys and K’naan. This inaugural fest will be free to the public but you’ll have to secure tickets via lottery.
Here’s details about how the tickets will be distributed…
Global Poverty Project developed an online and app-based platform called Global Citizen through which potential concertgoers get placed in the lottery by taking action for the various causes and charities represented by the event – from making donations to educating themselves in depth about various issues. The cost of the event is being funded primarily by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Sumner Redstone Charity Foundation, along with partners like UNICEF and Rotary International.
Crazy Horse will back Young at this event, which was put together by the Global Poverty Project along with famed promoter Goldenvoice/AEG.
Neil Young and Crazy Horse played their first show in over eight years last night at The Pavilion in Albuquerque, New Mexico as they kicked off a week of gigs leading to Outside Lands on August 10. This version of Young’s longtime backing band features Frank Sampedro on guitars, keyboards and vocals; Billy Talbot on bass and vocals and Ralph Molina on drums and vocals. The group treated fans to a 13-song main set and two-song encore made up of Neil Young classics and new material. Among the seven debuts performed by the band, only one – Jesus’ Chariot – was from the recently released Americana LP. The rest may potentially be on the Crazy Horse album expected this fall.
According to reports on Thrasher’s Wheat, Love And Only Love ran 13 minutes, Walk Like A Giant approached the 20-minute mark and Every Morning Comes The Sun raged on for 17 minutes – so there’s no lack of jamming. Here’s the full setlist…
Set: Love And Only Love / Powderfinger / Ontario* / ”Walk Like A Giant”* / The Needle And The Damage Done / Twisted Road* / For The Love Of Man* / ”Every Morning Comes The Sun”* / Cinnamon Girl / F*!#in’ Up / ”Party Girl”* / Mr. Soul / Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)
The long-running annual benefit concert Farm Aid will come to Hersheypark Stadium in Hershey, Penn. on Sept. 22. This year’s event will feature board members Dave Matthews (performing with Tim Reynolds), Neil Young, John Mellencamp and Willie Nelson. In addition, Jack Johnson, ALO, Pegi Young & the Survivors and Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real will round out the lineup.
The first Farm Aid took place in 1985 and over the years the foundation has raised over $40 million to benefit family farmers across the country. Tickets for Farm Aid 2012 will go on sale Friday, July 13, at 10 AM EDT and will be available at www.livenation.com, www.ticketmaster.com, Ticketmaster outlets, GIANT Center Box Office, or by phone at 800-745-3000.
