Neil Young: Heart of Gold

A few years back, I saw Neil Young and Crazy Horse play at the Greek Theater here in Los Angeles. I didn't even realize, to be honest, that Neil had a new album coming out. I just saw that they were coming through town and figured that my brother, father and I would probably enjoy going to check them out, as we're all fans of their 70's brand of jammy blues rock as featured on albums like Everybody Knows This is Nowhere.

It turns out, Neil did have a new project - the themed Greendale LP - and proceeded to perform the album in its entirety, along with live actors and elaborate sets, as the main set of the concert. My reaction was mixed. Though I think the Greendale songs are overall pretty good, and the band sounds great, and seeing a theme album acted out by Russ Tamblyn (seriously!) and others was kind of a trip...I would have still rather seen a greater variety of Neil Young songs from random albums throughout his extensive and impressive career.

He did do a really ripping encore that included most of the "live" half of the Rust Never Sleeps album, so I didn't go home disappointed. This is just how Neil operates. He assembles a group of musicians he knows, records an album and then takes that same band around the country to play the songs for live audiences. It seems to have worked well enough so far.

Weakened with age and health concerns (he had recently been diagnosed with an operable brain aneurysm), Neil gathered together some of his favorite long-time collaborators to record the wistful, occasionally maudlin country album, Prairie Wind. Jonathan Demme's superior concert film, Neil Young: Heart of Gold, combines footage shot over two nights at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, with Neil and his fellow Prairie Wind musicians showcasing the album's songs and dipping into his back catalog. The DVD came out yesterday and is mandatory viewing for any fans of Neil Young or country-rock in general.



Demme previously shot the Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense, quite possibly my favorite concert film of all time. (Although that's tough to say, because Monterey Pop and The Last Waltz and Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars all make a strong case.) As in Stop Making Sense, Demme sacrifices some measure of energy and immediacy to give the viewer a real sense of the meaning and significance of this performance. In his previous film, the idea wasn't so much to make you feel as if you too were in the crowd watching Dave Byrne in his oversized suit as it was to capture the esesence of this band, to document why, at that moment, it was worthwhile to pay attention to "Girlfriend is Better" instead of some other, more radio-friendly number.

Similarly, I wouldn't neccessarily call Heart of Gold a "best seat in the house" kind of experience. It's more focused on Neil Young's personal journey, taking some time off from music before realizing, perhaps to his surprise, that he had something more to say. Demme attempts to use these two concerts as a description of the process of aging, how you hang on to the fascinations of your youth but continually adapt them to fit the preson you've become.

For Neil himself, it seems like the idea of collaborating with his old friends was more enticing than the actual act of making music. He's understandably excited to be back on stage at the venue that hosts the Grand Ole Opry, playing Hank Williams old guitar, with Emmy Lou Harris and his wife Pegi and guys like Grant Boatwright and Spooner Oldham and Larry Cragg, the man with perhaps the most appropriate last name of all time. Sometimes, the chummy good vibes are a bit too much, in fact. I could have done without a few of the mid-song smile exchanges between Neil and wife Pegi, who provides background vocals. I mean, come on, are you guys making a concert film or a wedding video here?

The music itself is pleasant enough, if a bit folksy for my tastes. Prairie Wind the album had some highlights, and they stand up really well in the live format, particularly the dreamily optimistic "It's a Dream." Of course, it's unintentionally ironic that, just as this performance appears on DVD, showing Neil's most laid-back, romantic side, a new album has just been released showcasing his tendency towards bitter, angry hard-rock. So it's nice, while watching something like the treacly empty-nest lament "Here for You," to remember that this guy can still write a blazing arena anthem called "Let's Impeach the President."

After the Prairie Wind segment, the band performs a number of Neil's classic countrified selections, including "Old King" and "Harvest Moon." Though I've grown to appreciate Neil Young over the years, I never liked him as a child when my Dad would put on his music. "Old King" is the one song that I still can't really stand, lo these many years later. It's just so lame and, I'm sorry, really artificial. I usually find Neil's attempts to adopt the cowboy persona kind of charming, but that song just ain't workin' fer me. Plus, the plinkity-plink guitar refrain annoys the crap out of me. For all you songwriters out there, "Old King" has one valuable lesson:

Never begin a song with the line: "I had a dog and his name was King." It makes it sound like your song was written as a 5th grade in-class assignment.

Neil also solos on "Needle and the Damage Done," which is a great song but kind of clashes with the honeyed sentimentality of the rest of the setlist. Regardless, with the surround sound bumping in my living room, it all sounded great.

But what impressed me just as much as the musicianship was the filmmaking. It's just shot and edited so seamlessly and so handsomely realized, full of Demme's patented tight close-ups and strange, akimbo angles. You're forced to pay attention to the melancholy behind the songs rather than focusing on Young's occasionally Hallmark-esque lyricism.

I just have one final concern...What the hell is going on with Emmylou Harris? A few years ago, at like the Johnny Cash funeral and those performances with Elvis Costello, she looked fine. But did she have some bad plastic work done in the interim? Or was she in some kind of car accident? She looks scary. (That's her on Neil's right. To his left is his wife, Pegi Young.)



And here's a better look at her, close-up, just so you all get what I'm talking about here...



When this woman, who appeared to be aging quite gracefully, become The Joker? And why wasn't I informed?