Pine Knob Music Theatre (Clarkston, May 22, 2024)

the Horse rides again

I hope to be half as vital as Neil Young when I’m 78. It’s incredible to be watching a man who’s been playing rock ‘n roll shows since he was a teenager still up there making such a fun racket. Yes, I saw Neil Young this week up near Detroit at the beautiful Pine Knob Music Theatre. This time I was accompanied by my very awesome wife, who is not really a Neil fan, but made the sometimes annoying trip with me (Michigan, what’s with all the random highway delays?). And this time Neil was accompanied by the newly reconstituted Crazy Horse: the 80 year old rhythm section of Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina and the 33 year old Micah Nelson filling in for Nils Logren, who replaced Frank Sampedro. He fits in perfectly with the messy, powerful chemistry of the Horse.

Pine Knob is about three hours away from me, but it took a good four hours to get there with constant delays lengthening the trip. However, I did two things that turned out to be real gifts to our trip. The first is I bought VIP parking lot tickets on Vivid Seats. From going to our local Blossom Music Center, I know these outdoor venues can have tricky traffic getting in and out. So I was able to get parking pretty close to the venue. And this lot had more or less a dedicated route going south after the show. The second thing I did was ask around the Neil Young fan groups for local advice on going to Pine Knob. One person’s advice was invaluable: Get off at Baldwin and make your way to Pine Knob Road, which takes you to the back entrance of the venue. Thank you, Rustie, whose name I forget! We sailed home in under three hours, which made the whole experience even better.

We got to the venue in time to sit down and eat a little picnic, while listening to the band soundcheck a couple songs. I was excited to hear “Slip Away,” knowing that he had played “Big Time” on the tour already. They also sound checked “I’m the Ocean” but didn’t play either of the songs during the show, which made hearing the soundcheck kind of a bonus pre-encore. Once we got in, I went directly to the merch stand to grab a couple things and then we started walking around. It was a gorgeous evening, with the wind shaking the pines in a comforting way. Neil had made the whole place go local and organic (local brews, closing chain vendors, grass fed beef, etc) and there was the very cool Love Earth Village. This consisted of a row of a local climate and environmental organizations.

We made our way to our seats to find some fellow Ohioans right in front of us. I have to mention our awesome usher Meg, too. Super nice and helpful. The hilariously compelling Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir opened the show with a short revival about consumerism and the planet. I could do with a little less of the sermonizing and more of the choir, who were extremely good for what is essentially performance art. If I had to guess, I’d say about half the audience had fun with it and the other half were very impatient for Neil to come out. If you don’t find this even a little bit entertaining for the very brief length of time they perform, then you may just be cranky.

When my only complaint is that the show was one of the shorter ones (16 songs in 102 minutes), it’s gotta be good, right? It was very good. The sound was wonderful, the setlist was packed, Neil was characteristically funny. Sure, there were times when someone (usually Neil) flubbed a part but the band course corrected when needed and turned out rock solid performances for every song. My other…observation is…Look, I’m very grateful to all the tapers and people posting videos from the shows, but can some of you think of how distracting this is to the people in back of you? It’s very weird to be watching the band play and then see half a dozen small video screens in your eye line showing the image again. Again, it’s great we get to hear and see shows we can’t attend but there’s got to be a better way. Seeing a concert these days is just surreal for this reason alone. Not everyone needs to make their own video.

“Cortez the Killer” with re-added verses is the show opener and it’s still a wonderfully captivating performance, although I’m not sure I like it as a show opener. Most tours, “Cortez” is a third act showstopper, usually coming as a meditative moment. Here, it works to ease the band into the groove. Given just how much fun and lively the following “Cinnamon Girl” is, it works. The latter is not one of my favorite songs, but it was exuberant rolling off the top here. “Fuckin’ Up” was badass with Billy really holding down the bass on this one. That’s something you don’t always grasp on the albums. Much of the Crazy Horse sound is Billy’s somewhat simple bass being like a glue for the band. It connects Neil to the rhythm and allows him to go wild when he needs to. The bass is always there for him to come back to.

When we got there and I was watching the wind in the pines, I had a feeling we would get “Like a Hurricane” and was not disappointed. It was fun watching the synth descend from the rafters as Micah took up his station. A wonderful performance and the crowd was definitely into it. Likewise, “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” was a welcome inclusion, but I found “Down by the River” a little meandering and not quite as powerful as it has been in the past. This is kind of the quintessential Crazy Horse jam, too.

“Powderfinger” was customarily fantastic and well received by this crowd. I really enjoyed “Love and Only Love,” despite it being one of the shortest renditions I’ve ever heard at six minutes and change. That’s shocking and seems to be where the wheels came off a little. As I recall, Neil started to play the riff of “Barstool Blues,” then there was a little chat amongst the group. They launched into the abbreviated “Love and Only Love” instead. The band walked off the stage and Neil took a notable break behind the stage before coming out for three acoustic songs. I realize the acoustic portion is a chance for Billy and Ralph to take a break, but my understanding was that Neil started the acoustic portion without delay. The pace of the tour might have caught up with them this night?*

“Comes a Time” is so beautiful and the crowd singing along is an uplifting experience. I’ve said before that I’m not a huge fan of “Heart of Gold,” but I did really like hearing the entire venue singing along with it. It does what concerts should do, connect you to the experience in a communal way. We all came here to hear Neil and the Horse because we are fans. I really dislike hearing people sing along on tapes or at solo shows, but sometimes it works when it’s the whole place. In a repeat of what I heard last year, Neil led the audience in a rendition of “Love Earth.” It’s a somewhat goofy little song, but the sing-a-long elevates it.

When the band came back out after and I heard the first strains of Old Black’s tone, I turned to my wife and said “get ready,” knowing that “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)” was about to be unleashed. There’s nothing quite like that dirty, overdriven riff and the force of the drums on this song. It was big, loud, and a lot of fun. I’m really glad they are ending the official portion of the shows with this one. After a short encore pause, they came back out for “Don’t Cry No Tears” and “Roll Another Number (For the Road),” the latter a song I love and it was nice to go out on such a fun note. That said, the encore felt rushed, with hardly any pause between songs, and the lights came up awfully quick. Not really sure if there was a problem, or if they just they wanted to hit the hay because they needed to be in Chicago the next day.*

I would have loved to have heard a couple surprise nuggets, but the show we got was fantastic and the crowd was overall enthusiastic about it. It was a blessing in disguise for us, as it meant we could hit the road home quicker. We were both grateful for that. If this is the last show I see of this band, I’ll be quite happy, but please Neil, consider the Ohio market next time you go out! I’ll be there.

*Update: the next three shows after Pine Knob have been postponed “due to illness.” Not known who is ill, but apparently they at least arrived in Chicago and did a 45 minute sound check. Hope whoever is ill gets well soon.

Top 3:

1. Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)

2. Like a Hurricane

3. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere