Across the Water is one of the gems of Neil Young Archives Vol. 3 and it’s another occasion to wonder “how the hell did this sit in a vault for almost 50 years?” In the hardcover book that comes with the deluxe box, there are scans of handwritten shot lists for the film, and notes on the best performances. Clearly a film had been planned. Maybe it was abandoned as the Rust Never Sleeps concept took hold two years later, but in the years since it was never mentioned until the past year as Vol. 3 finalized. Bits and pieces of the video sources have been leaked, and the audio bootlegged, of course, but it was never known what the plan for it was. I’m really glad we have it now, because it’s remarkable.
There’s been a controversy brewing in Archives land for a while now surrounding live album mixing and Across the Water is the latest to catch some flak. I’m not sure where this controversy really starts but I think began with the original Way Down in the Rust Bucket DVD mix, which didn’t use John Hanlon’s audio mix, but a more live sounding one. The next salvo was Noise & Flowers which sounds like it was recorded on a boombox from the parking lot. If we didn’t have anything direct to compare Across the Water to, I might have never really noticed, but then there’s Odeon Budokan.
This was the final disc of Vol. 2 and it covers the same tour with two songs overlapping (“Cowgirl in the Sand” and “Stringman”) and was also separately released. It exists as a tight David Briggs mix, with virtually no crowd or room sound. When you listen to the same songs on Across the Water, there is now a lot more reverb, which smudges the brilliance of the sound. While I think Odeon Budokan is a touch harsh in its dryness, it does sound sharper and more natural than Across the Water. My guess is they wanted Across the Water to sound more like a live performance in a big hall to go along with the film’s impression, but it makes it a little bit of a letdown. It makes the drums and bass especially plodding, smearing the rhythm into the background. Neil’s voice now has a false sounding echo on it, as well. It’s a shame, but (for me, at least) only slightly diminishes the phenomenal performances.
One of the notable inclusions is Long May You Run song “Let It Shine,” which is given a more melancholy solo rendition than its slick and overproduced album version. Given I can’t really stand that album, I didn’t even remember it was originally from there and wondered how this beautiful song could have been hidden for so long. It’s one of the Vol. 3 songs that I’ve been humming to myself most often. It’s also a pleasure to have an early rendition of “Country Home,” a song he played with Crazy Horse for a long time before they finally tackled it in the studio for Ragged Glory. Its first appearance was only 3 months before, so this is about as original as we can hope for (despite there being an ok bootleg of its second performance).
Although the film is only available in the deluxe edition of Vol. 3 for now, it’s an essential piece of Neil history. A look at live Crazy Horse from 1976 is a treat on many levels, from Ralph’s CCCP jacket to the disconcerting layout of the band on stage. Poncho and Billy are stage left instead of the more familiar stage right configuration they use in Rust Never Sleeps and every live performance I’ve seen since then. Seeing these guys jam on stage post-Zuma is a very different experience from that tour just two years later. More raw, more in the moment, less theatrical. Additionally, the first half of Across the Water (film and discs) is the legendary March 11, 1976 Tokyo show immortalized by Poncho in quotes such as the below.
Billy and I both dropped acid because that night, after the show, we were flying to Copenhagen. We didn’t want to carry any drugs with us and I had these two tabs of acid. We each took one. It was so funny. We went there in the van and everything was starting to get crazy. Psychedelic patterns and shit flying around. (Frank “Poncho” Sampedro to Tyler Wilcox, Aquarium Drunkard, April 2021)
We did “Cowgirl in the Sand” and Billy and Ralph went up to sing the backgrounds. I opened my eyes and saw big mandalas comin' out of the back of both their heads, all these colors and shit. I couldn't even look up, I was so high. I'd hit the strings of my guitar: they were like eighty different colors, and they bounced off the floors and hit the ceiling. At the end of the second song Neil came runnin' over, stuck his head between me and Billy and goes, “Man, we're psychedelic tonight!” I just looked at Billy, thinkin', “He told him, he told him.” The whole rest of the night I don’t even think we made a mistake. It was unbelievable. (Frank “Poncho” Sampedro to Jimmy McDonough, Shakey)
Watch them play “Cowgirl in the Sand” and you can see how in the zone they were, just completely one with the music. It ceases to be a performance and is just artists playing for themselves. Neil has always been trying to put out music that feels like it feels to him when playing the music and I think Across the Water does a good job of that.
The first disc of Across the Water contains a welcome and fiery performance of “Southern Man” that has been a long time coming, in my opinion. I’ve always been confused why there wasn’t a Crazy Horse version of this song, although I suppose the 4 Way Street rendition was definitive in Neil’s mind. Horse fiends needed this, though. A great part of the film is the Nippon Budokan crowd, previously quite polite, rushing the stage as “Southern Man” of all songs starts up. I think that surge of energy really fed the band, as they play the hell out of this song to cap off the night. It sends the band off the stage triumphantly and it’s no wonder the crowd entices them back out for a great “Cortez the Killer.”
The second disc travels a continent away (and twenty days) to the Hammersmith Odeon in London. Strangely, the film shifts to black and white for the London portion, despite color footage being previously available. There is a very meaningful segment between the performances, starting out with Neil at the piano in the hotel, singing Ivory Joe Hunter’s “Since I Met You Baby,” then asking his manager Elliot Roberts “name one happy song I’ve written.” This carries through into a very strange interview where the interviewer wants Neil to admit he’s a sad and lonely songwriter. Neil insists he’s fine and starts joking about how he will be remembered: “This man died searching for a heart of gold.” Then he gets serious and says he wants to leave a point of view, which makes sense as an artist, of course. Elsewhere, Neil draws a crowd while busking on the streets, providing entertainment for some, and brusque frustration for others, a microcosm of the life of an entertainer.
I love when Neil plays banjo and the “Human Highway” that kicks off the second half of Across the Water is great. Despite it already being released on Odeon Budokan, “Stringman” always stops me in my tracks. One of Neil’s best piano songs, it’s mind boggling how it was never released until Unplugged. The mix is not as good as Odeon Budokan, but the emotion still carries through. It’s fun to hear Neil talking to the band after his solo set and hyping up how good the crowd is. “How long should we wait to go out there?” Briggs replying “you want to go play, go play now” as if it’s the obvious thing is classic.
Oddly, the great performance of “Like a Hurricane” has been shown in color before (including in Year of the Horse), so it’s strange for this whole part of the film to be in black and white. Something that really sticks out to me is watching Neil play guitar on this song and his unique method of mixing finger picking and guitar strumming. It helps to explain how he gets so many unique sounds out of Old Black. He’s activity exploiting all the guitar’s possibilities instead of sticking to the way you’re supposed to play it. Also, they have the fan running, so apparently that was an early idea for this song, too. After some stoned backstage banter, Neil proposes playing “Homegrown” and the band is really into it. It’s a funky song and probably a lot of fun for them to play. It’s the only song from a third location, though: Glasgow a couple days later. Fun way to end things, even though the footage that plays over it is from London, it looks like.
Across the Water is an immense release, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s released separately from Vol. 3 at some point. Would be great to see the film in a theater, especially.