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Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Live At The Fillmore East (1970)

Posted By: franklee
Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Live At The Fillmore East (1970)


Artist: Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Title: Live At The Fillmore East
Label: Reprise
Genre: Rock
Released: November 14, 2006
Recorded: March, 1970
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 320 kBit/s
Size: 90 MB (incl. 5% Recovery record)

Ever since he started rumbling about releasing his archives some 20, 30 years ago – it's been so long, it's hard to keep track of the specifics – Neil Young talked about it as a mammoth box set, or perhaps a series of box sets each chronicling a different era in his career, comprised entirely of unreleased recordings, some live, some studio. It was an eagerly anticipated set, since everybody knew that he had scores of unreleased recordings in his vaults. Not just songs, but full albums that were scrapped at the last minute. He regularly tested out new songs on tour, sometimes rewriting them later, sometimes never releasing them on album. Some of his peers had similar habits – Bob Dylan had a similar treasure trove of unreleased recordings – but unlike Dylan, Young took an active interest in archiving this material himself. Given the amount of unreleased tapes, some patience was in order, but as the years stretched into decades, with Neil tinkering away, changing his mind, waiting for digital sound to get out of the dark ages, it was easy to wonder if the set would ever come out. When it did, it was not with a splash, as was the official Bob Dylan Bootleg Series, which was inaugurated as a triple-disc box in 1991. No, Young eased his way into the series by releasing a single disc called Live at the Fillmore East late in 2006.

Billed as the second volume of the "Performance Series" – clearly, the numbers are assigned chronologically in order of recording, not release – Live at the Fillmore East is not dissimilar to the subsequent entries in Dylan's bootleg series: it focuses on a specific, significant tour in Young's past. In this case, it's Neil's 1970 tour with Crazy Horse, supporting Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, his first record with the band. This was the original lineup of Crazy Horse featuring Danny Whitten, who would die tragically of a heroin overdose a mere two years later, making this a pivotal tour in Young's history. Whitten's ghost haunted Young & Crazy Horse throughout the '70s, particularly on his gloomy masterpiece Tonight's the Night, which featured a version of Whitten's great "Come on Baby Let's Go Downtown" recorded during the group's stint at the Fillmore East in March 1970, which this album documents in a fuller fashion. That version of "Downtown" on Tonight's the Night hints at the power of this performance: simultaneously lithe and lumbering, it captures how Neil & Crazy Horse could sound at once unpredictable and inevitable. Part of that came from bassist Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina, whose ramshackle rhythms were uniquely suited for Young, and pianist Jack Nitzsche also added texture to this tour, but this performance reveals how empathetic the interplay between Young and Whitten was. These guitarists weren't rivals; they interlocked and rode Talbot and Molina's steady, if occasionally misshapen, groove for as long as they could go – and in the case of the 12-minute "Down by the River" and the 16-minute "Cowgirl in the Sand," it was very long indeed, but they're never boring; they're hypnotic in their circular riffs and solos. Add to that a ragged, beautiful "Winterlong" and the sweet, loping "Wonderin'" – performed here, but not released until Young revived and revamped it for his 1983 rockabilly record Everybody's Rockin' – and this is truly a special performance and more than worthy beginning to the archives project. That doesn't mean that this release is faultless. The main complaint that can be lodged against Live at the Fillmore East is that it's not a complete representation of a 1970 show. During this tour, Neil opened with an acoustic set and then had Crazy Horse come out for an electric set; the acoustic is not here, but most of the electric is, with only "Cinnamon Girl" absent – and it's absent because there was not existing high-quality tape for it, unlike the rest of music that's featured here. So, it comes down to a matter of taste: for hardcore fans used to bootleg quality, they may lament the lack of a full show, but for those who want the best of this legendary stay at the Fillmore East in the best possible audio quality (including a DVD of the show, where the main program plays to photos of the band from the tour), that's what this set gives you. And in doing so, it gives a good indication that as Neil slowly rolls out the archives, he'll emphasize quality over completeness for better and for worse.
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine(allmusic.com)

Live at the Fillmore East is a live album by Neil Young and Crazy Horse with guitarist Danny Whitten. It features performances recorded by the band in March 1970 at Bill Graham's Fillmore East in New York in support of their recent album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. Young played four shows there on March 6 and 7, each show consisting of a solo acoustic set and a set with Crazy Horse. This release contains each song performed during the electric set, minus "Cinnamon Girl". It is apparently the first release related to his long-anticipated Archives series.[1] It was released on CD and DVD. The DVD will feature pictures from the show, pictures of the original handwritten lyrics and reviews from the era, as well as improved sound (24bit/96kHz PCM audio) over the CD release.

The album is the first live release featuring Danny Whitten, who died in 1972. A performance of Whitten's "Come on Baby Let's Go Downtown" from the same shows was previously released on Young's 1975 album Tonight's the Night, which explores Young's grief at the loss of friends to drugs. A studio version of this song appears on the Crazy Horse album. The release features two other songs from the era that wouldn't see the light of day until years after the concert. "Winterlong" was first released on the 1977 compilation Decade and "Wonderin'" would feature on the 1983 rockabilly album Everybody's Rockin', complete with doo-wop backing vocals.

The release is a departure of format from what fans had expected. In previous interviews, Young had expressed interest in releasing a series of multi-disc box sets of unreleased material and performances, long referred to as the "Archives".[2] It is unclear whether the idea of box sets has been abandoned in favor of individual releases akin to Bob Dylan's Bootleg Series, though the Live at the Fillmore East album cover does list the release as Disc 02 of the Neil Young Archives Performance Series, indicating that this release is likely part of a series, perhaps including a 1969 solo concert from Toronto's Massey Hall, or a live performance of the Tonight's the Night album at the Rainbow Theatre in London in 1973. It is possible that the Archives series will consist of individual concert releases in addition to box sets.

Some fans have expressed disappointment that this, the first release from the Archives project, contains only six tracks. On the tour, the Crazy Horse set was preceded each night by a five song solo acoustic set. As the release is barely over 40 minutes long, there would have been room left over on the CD for "On the Way Home," "Broken Arrow," "I am a Child" or other songs performed during the tour. During a trailer for the release found on Young's official website (see external links below), it is explained that from the two shows featured on the release, multi-track recordings of only five songs survive. Thus, it may be that the acoustic set and "Cinnamon Girl" are not included due to sound quality problems, not subjective reasons.

Many fans and reviewers have expressed excitement to see the release of archival Neil Young material. Young's catalog is notable for the lack of such releases, especially considering his reputations for being prolific and for completing material without releasing it.

The album debuted on the Billboard 200 album chart at number 55 on December 2, 2006. It spent three weeks on the chart.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Performers
* Neil Young - vocals, guitar

* Crazy Horse:

* Danny Whitten - guitar, vocals
* Billy Talbot - bass, vocals
* Ralph Molina - drums, vocals

* Jack Nitzsche - electric piano

Tracklist:

01 - Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
02 - Winterlong
03 - Down By The River
04 - Wonderin'
05 - Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown
06 - Cowgirl In The Sand

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