Neil Young & Crazy Horse aren’t house pets. When they play onstage together, it’s still a wild animal.
Last night, Young and the Horse turned Orion Amphitheater into the world’s biggest garage with its door rolled up. Shaggy rockers like “Cinnamon Girl” sounded simultaneously timeless and “now.” Fans in the nearly full 8,000-capacity venue sang along and shimmied. The 14-song, 90-ish minute hit between giving everything and leaving them wanting more.
Following Young’s haunting vocals and refracted guitar, bassist Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina rolled like a badass vintage truck. Especially on a jammed-out “Love and Only Love,” off aptly titled 1990 “Ragged Glory.” Peak Horse.
Talbott and Molina and Young have put in many miles since their first album together, 1969′s “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.” At Orion, a performance of that LP’s country-grunge title track reminded how many bands, from Nirvana and Black Crowes to the White Stripes and My Morning Jacket, echo that sound.
Second guitarist Micah Nelson’s makes a great Horse. He adds to and never distracts from the band’s trademark clang, dang and squall.
During a transportive performance of ‘70s gem “Like a Hurricane,” Nelson – yep, son of Willie – played windswept sounds on a keyboard decorated like a tie-dyed altar. Before “Hurricane,” the keyboard was ritualistically lowered from overhead stage rigging. Afterward, the keyboard rig was raised back up. The sacrament complete.
The stage was outfitted with the oversized guitar amps and road cases props immortalized in 1979 concert doc “Rust Never Sleeps.” On a riser between that skyline, Molina steered from a drumkit with a pirate flag flying overhead. Behind the band, a banner adorned with a horse silhouette and smattering of stars. A few blue-and-white-hued spotlights overhead.
The performance began with the band walking onstage as Young played comet-filigree notes on “Old Black,” the battered and modified ‘53 Les Paul he’s recorded much of his electric guitar tracks with during his Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame career.
Before the third song, “Scattered (Let’s Think About Livin’)” off 1996 studio album “Broken Arrow,” there was an extended pause as Old Black was re-tuned offstage.
Young introduced the song as an ode to his longtime producer, the late David Briggs, who died before the “Broken Arrow” sessions. He also remarked on Orion Amphitheater’s charms. “This is a beautiful place you have here,” he said. “This is an amazing place.”
Clad in a cap, denim shirt, “Love Earth Tour” shirt, and paint-stained work pants, Young played every electric guitar note this night on Old Black. No switching back and forth between a posh array of axes.
This added to an endearingly unfussy set peppered sonically with buzzes, hums, feedback. Occasionally between songs, Young futzed with his guitar pedals.
Handmade rock and roll, through and through. In an era of backing tracks, in-ear monitors and digital guitar amp simulators, totally refreshing.
During instrumental passages of songs, Young, Talbot and Nelson often gathered in a small circle facing each other. Like a tribe or gang.
Whenever Young went into one of his transcendental, echoed guitar solos, he painted with sound. If you closed your eyes, landscapes and movies took shape in your mind.
Two-thirds of the way into the show, the rest of the band left the stage and Young performed a handful of songs solo on a well-worn Martin acoustic guitar and a harmonica mounted on a neck rack with a mic.
His heartfelt singing and strumming on “Comes a Time” and especially “Heart of Gold” and “Human Highway” held the entire amphitheater transfixed. Just one dude and his songs. Pretty amazing.
A stop on Neil Young & Crazy Horse’s “Love Earth Tour,” this was Young’s first performance ever in Huntsville and somewhat of a rare Alabama show for him. The crowd was a mix of gracefully aged hippies, longtime fans, silver foxes, local creatives, tattooed and pierced service industry types.
A few kiddos in the mix too. They’ll have “my first concert was” bragging rights someday.
As many rock fans know, a couple of Young’s ‘70s lyrics, on the songs “Southern Man” and “Alabama,” were critical of The South. In later years, he’s stopped performing those songs live. In his memoir several years ago, he wrote those lyrics now felt self-righteous.
At Orion, there were a couple wince-inducing moments when a few fans called out for “Southern Man” and “Sweet Home Alabama,” Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Southern rock anthem that called Young out for his criticisms. Thankfully those moments were small and passed as quick as they happened.
Earlier that evening, a rainstorm washed over Huntsville. This delayed the show, and also cooled off the temperature. It felt great inside Orion’s Roman-coliseum-influenced realm.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse are the latest legends the amphitheater’s brought to Huntsville for the first time, following the likes of Stevie Nicks, Robert Plant, Jack White and Smashing Pumpkins.
The concert started with an unlisted opening act, Reverend Billy and The Church of Stop Shopping Choir. The New York-based collective played a short set of ecologically minded songs elevated by nine strong backing vocalists and a gospel/R&B style revue band. Within a couple songs, they won me over from WTF to hallelujah.
By the end of the choir’s set, sure, some fans were raring to hear the Crazy Horse electric rumble they came for. But give me an opening act turn-on over a DJ, stand-up comedian or “performance painter” any day. It added to the night.
In addition to being a prolific artist, Young’s an iconoclast. He puts his money where his beliefs are, whether that’s removing his catalog from Spotify, championing environmental causes or sticking up for audio quality that doesn’t suck. At Orion, he reportedly requested only locally made beer be sold at the venue. Only non-Coca-Cola beverages too.
After Young’s solo acoustic songs, Crazy Horse returned to the stage for a molten “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black).” In the crowd, this sparked much hip-shaking. A bit of headbanging, too. It also had me lusting after the Mu-Tron Octave Divider effect pedal Young used on this song and others. It shifts his guitar sound from gnarly fuzz to interstellar hyperdrive.
After “Hey Hey,” the band gathered in arms at that front of the stage and waved goodbye. Big cheers and applause. But it wasn’t so long just yet. A few minutes later, Young, Talbot, Molina and Nelson returned to rip into “F---in’ Up’”, a haymaker off “Ragged Glory.”
The song crescendoed into electrical storm. The band bid their last farewell. Young laid Old Black, a priceless rock relic, strings-down against the drummer riser and walked offstage.
MORE ON MUSIC:
Judas Priest legend Rob Halford loves country music, cats, ‘invincible fan base’
She’s on Rolling Stone’s greatest guitarists list, won 2 Grammys and just getting started
How an Alabama guitarist is helping Lynyrd Skynyrd rock and roll on
A rare classic-rock tour where the band’s new songs are a big draw too
Joe Bonamassa talks new supergroup album, why Eric Clapton still rules
This hall of fame musician is the Forrest Gump of classic rock
How an Alabama singer helped a Mötley Crüe legend make his solo debut