FILM: Home Town (2017)

The day The Visitor was released, December 1, 2017, Neil was in his home town of Omemee, Ontario, Canada. He played a special solo concert at the historic Coronation Hall (built in 1911) for a small crowd. It was also broadcast on Neil Young Archives, and has subsequently become the site’s yearly holiday movie. It’s running in the Hearse Theater right now through December 31. Check it out if you have the time and a subscription, because it’s a lovely recent solo show from Neil where he plays songs from his entire career. He very sweetly tells funny stories between most songs like usual, but he’s chattier than usual and I’d imagine that’s because of the small venue. I would love to see him in an environment like this before he retires (if that ever happens). Neil live is an incredible experience, solo or with a band. Lately he has been talking about how detrimental to the climate concert tours are and how he’s trying to figure out how to make them greener. I hope he figures it out, even if he just does a small solo tour.

In the rebroadcast version currently running, Daryl Hannah creates a nice intro filled with Neil’s recollections, vintage photos and movies, with a great sense of his connection to where he grew up. I love that he starts with “Comes a Time,” a song I appreciate more and more, but which you don’t hear very often in a solo setting. Ditching his jacket (“Hope you liked this jacket…cause I’m not going to wear it anymore” is some classic Neil), he walks down off the stage where a piano is setup right in front of the first row to play “Journey Through the Past,” interspersed with 1970s footage of him playing the same song at Young Shakespeare. This row is sitting no more than three feet behind him. Talk about intimate! Of course, he quips about not wearing a belt and hoping this wouldn’t be the “butt crack sessions.” This is Neil in concert. He talks pretty openly to the crowd and is always surprisingly funny. After saying he was unsure about the next song and wasn’t going to play it, he goes back down to the lower level for a beautiful rendition of “Someday,” another rarity in concert.

While I largely love this holiday film, I have a couple complaints. Checking out the set list on Sugar Mountain, I’m disappointed that he played “Love is a Rose” in the original broadcast, but for some reason it was removed. I’ve always liked that song. I’m also a little unsure of the times where Young Shakespeare footage is interspersed with the Coronation Hall concert. They do this again on “There’s a World.” It’s cool to compare his voice, but it breaks the feeling of the concert. That said, that song is cool and foreboding when performed solo vs the overblown Harvest version. Marking the aforementioned release of The Visitor, he includes an acoustic “Stand Tall.” While stripping it back like this sounds better, the song still feels out of place, and the lyrics are even more blunt this way.

I really like the lighting and camera work during “War of Man,” a song I never really noticed on Harvest Moon, but felt was much improved on Dreamin Man ‘92. A pair of my favorite songs follows this, making a nice little section here before the encore. An acoustic “Don’t Be Denied” is a treat, especially here in his home town. Don’t get me wrong, I love the piano versions and the dramatic Time Fades Away version, but there’s just something about how Neil plays the acoustic, you know? Continuing the home town theme, he follows with “Helpless.” I’ve always loved this song, particularly the Massey Hall rendition. It’s just a warm feeling hearing him play these songs of personal history in a historic theater in his home town. He hilariously changes his hats throughout the show and talks about his various acoustic guitars as if they all have personalities. For “Helpless,” he points out a high heel mark on the body of one guitar with a sheepish grin. You can feel the excitement in the theater as they applaud rapturously for “there’s a town in north Ontario,” knowing they are sitting right in that very town. It’s a special moment.

After winding down with crowd favorite “Heart of Gold,” the applause brings him back quickly with a funny quip and a gentle “One of these Days,” a song I find myself humming randomly at times. The main melody is incredibly memorable. When Neil starts “Mother Earth (Natural Anthem)” with just a harmonica, it’s quite a feat of breathe control. The pump organ finally gets played for this statement piece. He closes out with what is one of his oldest, most consistently played songs, “Sugar Mountain,” taking him right back to where he began as a teenager starting to write his own songs. A beautiful way to cap this special concert off. “You're leaving there too soon” indeed.

Thanks for reading Only Castles Burning! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.