OK I'm going to be contrary but I generally don't like most of the long guitar wigouts, especially live (I think it went Cowgirl in the Sand AMAZING, because it was built round a great song and ever after the majesty wore off IMO etc) and is it just me or are they getting longer? Ach I don't know...he seems to save his worst lyrics for them and it all gets a bit farty, I tend to favour
'delicate' romantic Neil. Sometimes I think it can get a bit Emperors New Clothes, where he farts and the fans think it's gods thunder and some of the live stuff can get a bit like someone who is a bit hard of hearing shouting at you. I also try as much as I can to avoid reading or hearing anything he says post the 'aids potato incident' (which I am sure Vladimir Putin has a framed copy of) and ' big
for Reagan'. Though to be fair I increasingly try to know as little of the opinions and exploits of any musician and tend to concentrate on buying and listening to records comfortably walled off from their bigotry or rum actions.
That said I think the
Dead Man LP works well. I advanced the above theory to my Postman recently (who is a prince among men, who always takes care of my record deliveries) and he said I didn't deserve to own the Dead Man double (or any rare Neil albums or singles) and that I was 'a fucking disgrace' and that I should 'fuck off back to all that synth pish where you belong'.
It took me a while to get into Neil at all, I'd say that it was the only music I got into through meeting my Mrs, she had six or seven LP's and I was flicking through her records and telling her that I had quite a few Neil albums and singles (bought in job lots) but I'd never played them, beyond the first ten seconds of some album or other, because my cousin was a longhair with a fondness for Queen and Meat Loaf and he liked him and I remember him going to see Young play with the Eagles and it felt wrong to even consider the guy after that. She rightly pointed out that I was more than happy to listen to Pentangle and other maypole steppers and stuck on After the Goldrush and my view shifted considerably.
Btw here is some footage of Neil busking in Glasgow prior to playing after the Eagles.
D
