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Neil Young
official website
Track List:
1. Cowgirl In The Sand
2. Walk On
3. Fool For Your Love
4. Peace Of Mind
5. Words
6. Motorcycle Mama
7. Tonight's The Night
8. All Along The Watchtower (duet with Chrissie Hynde)
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Neil Young Friends & Relatives - Road Rock Volume One
(Reprise)
Building from the fuzzy strains of a single electric guitar, which hesitantly hover above muddled crowd noise, Neil Young's latest live offering, Road Rock Volume One, gets off on the right foot with an epic blowout of "Cowgirl in the Sand." Young and his friends (which include Donald "Duck" Dunn, Spooner Oldham, Ben Keith, and Jim Keltner) start things off loosely, letting Neil noodle on his guitar for a minute before joining him in a searing rendition of this classic from 1969's Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. For 18 minutes, the band builds and releases tension again and again in a fury of feedback and noise. Unfortunately, for Neil Young fans, these live fireworks have become commonplace. Young has officially released three live albums, including arguably one of the greatest ever (1979's Live Rust), leaving Road Rock the unenviable task of heading down a well-traveled highway.
The set list, heavy on '70s material, should please most longtime fanatics. Besides the opener, the group drops a soulful version of "Walk On," two songs from the somewhat forgotten Comes A Time ("Peace of Mind" and "Motorcycle Mama"), and a raucous rendition of Harvest's "Words (Between the Lines of Age)." From that point on, however, Young scuttles much of the power of the first two-thirds of the album by going into another version of "Tonight's the Night." That song has been played too many times; live interpretations appear on both Live Rust and 1991's Weld. Young brings nothing particularly new or refreshing to this version, leaving it as a wasted ten minutes on an otherwise interesting disc. He also ends with the questionable inclusion of "All Along the Watchtower" (featuring the Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde), a tune that has had much of its allure sapped by countless reinterpretations.
Though Road Rock is worth having on your CD shelf just for the first track, even hardcore Neil Young fans may be scratching their heads, wondering why they should spend money on yet another document of their hero in concert.
by Lem Oppenheimer
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