Massey Hall presents a musician who, despite his flight to
Verdict: 4.5/5 (great)
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Neil Young - Live at Massey Hall 1971 (2007)
The second in a series of vault releases, Live at Massey Hall 1971 captures Young at a definitive point in his career as singer/songwriter. Enjoying substantial popularity in the wake of his successes with Crazy Horse, CSNY and his solo albums, Massey Hall provides a glimpse of a musician and songwriter who is confident, yet still possesses a certain amiable naïveté. As he rambles through the catalog of old standards (“Old Man,” “Tell Me Why,” “Ohio”), stripped-down acoustic versions of the Crazy Horse material (“Cowgirl in the Sand,” “Down By the River”) and a few particularly dusty chestnuts (“Bad Fog of Loneliness”), Young, ever sweet and awkward in spite of himself, demurely banters with the Toronto audience: regaling them with anecdotes about his ranch and instructing them on when to take photographs.