Road Rock Vol. 1/Red Rocks Live (2000)

In terms of pure categorization, this might be the oddest entry to date. Ostensibly this is a live album and a companion film. None of the recordings overlap, though. Road Rock Vol. 1 takes its music from a handful of dates on the same tour, but Red Rocks Live is from a pair of performances at Red Rocks in Colorado. And despite the cover of Road Rock Vol. 1 being the band at Red Rocks, none of the recordings on it are from that performance. Oh and the band is a true motley crew dubbed “Friends & Relatives” (the relatives are his wife Pegi Young and half-sister Astrid Young). Lastly, this tour was supposedly for Silver & Gold, but no songs from that album appear on Road Rock Vol. 1 and only a few are on Red Rocks Live. The film is heavy on Harvest/Harvest Moon/Silver & Gold band songs, though. There’s one person that I’m sure this all makes sense to.

Red Rocks Live is clearly the better representation of this tour and point in time, with a more robust track list, the ability to see these “friends & relatives,” and actually containing current songs. Starting out with “Motorcycle Mama” with Pegi swaying and singing backup is pretty on point (despite this not being a favorite song of mine). As alluded to in the intro with manager Elliot Roberts, the conditions at Red Rocks this night were getting pretty bad, with rain and dropping temps. Astrid told the podcast Long May You Young about how freezing rain would accumulate on tarps and periodically dump down onto her back. Neil is blissfully unaware of this the whole time, based on the footage. For most of it, he seems in his own world. Unlike Crazy Horse performances, he gets no interaction from bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn on stage.

The film contains a lovely version of “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere,” a song I don’t usually hear live versions of, unfortunately. It’s a cool choice with this band. Gorgeous piano flourishes from Spooner Oldham and the band really seems in the same groove. By contrast, there just seems to be something off with the live album. Perhaps Red Rocks was the best show on the tour or maybe it’s just the element of seeing them together on stage and getting a better sense of the band’s vibe.

Of the Silver & Gold songs, “Razor Love” is not my favorite song but the performance of it here is really beautiful. And, of course, “Daddy Went Walkin’” is always fun but I still like it solo best. The band gives it a bit of a hokey feeling to me (I know, I know, it’s already a bit hokey), just too much coating on what should be a sparse arrangement.

“Walk On” is great to hear, as he rarely plays On The Beach songs. It’s a very fun song and the band is energized by it after the short run of Silver & Gold songs. Neil is smiling throughout the whole song, a change from his usual thousand yard stare. Another rarely heard song, “Winterlong,” follows it in the film and that’s another treat of this tour. Seeing Spooner Oldham manning a xylophone is completely wild. How often do you see a xylophone at a big rock show? One of the other rare songs is the 1971 song “Bad Fog of Loneliness” which wouldn’t see any sort of release until 2007 on the 1971 recording Live at Massey Hall. It’s such a lovely song and great to hear here. On the other hand, the previously unreleased “Fool For Your Love” is no great revelation. It dates to the Bluenotes era and appears on Bluenote Cafe with a bit more energy, but is still not a memorable song in the canon.

Something the film doesn’t have is the cover of “All Along The Watchtower” with Chrissie Hynde guesting (at my local outdoor venue Blossom Music Center, no less!). While I think the “Bobfest” version is better overall, Chrissie Hynde is a cool bonus to this one. The film and album do share incredible but different live performances of “Words,” though. The band is on point and it creates such a magical atmosphere like the best of Neil songs. A landscape of sound and imagery. When the lights come up on the striations in the rock behind him during the “the lines of age” chorus, it’s pure magic. In some ways, this should have been the finale of the performance. It would have been more fitting than the next few songs, I think.

“Harvest Moon” is lovely but a real snoozer after the tour de force of “Words,” and while I like the inclusion of “World on a String,” it and it’s “Tonight’s the Night” companion feel a little out of place with this band. That said, Neil doing his best blues piano on “Tonight’s the Night” is pretty cool (still not quite as cool as the blues rendition on Bluenote Cafe, though), but unfortunately the rest of the performance is too theatrical for its own good. The “yes it is” refrains are a bridge too far for one thing, but Neil also gets really meandering in his main vocal. Then comes the encore “Cowgirl in the Sand” and as much as I love that song, this is sadly not the band for that swampy jam. It’s a song made for Crazy Horse and taken out of their hands, it sounds a little boring after awhile. Also the mix is pretty lackluster. I think Dunn’s bass is just too high and it’s muddying the overall sound on this. It’s one of Neil’s best guitar songs and you can barely separate it. A shame since his first extended solo is quite unique for the song, with a lot of bits getting lost that I hadn’t heard him do before. Not the way you want to end a two hour set at an infamous and beloved concert location. Maybe it was the rain…

Then again, Neil comes out again and shouts it’s stopped raining despite there very clearly being rain on the film. The band launches into “Mellow My Mind” and it’s a bit messy but fun to hear another Tonight’s the Night track, despite not feeling like he pulls off the impression of the distraught vocal of the original he think he is. Mostly I feel bad for this band coming back out covered in cold rain.

Top 3:

1. Words
2. Everybody Knows This is Nowhere (film only)
3. Walk On

Cut song: Fool For Your Love

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