Kansas City Blog

If he didn't absorb the sound with his body, the fury that his guitar playing generates would suck everybody in the room down into its pickups, the way a bomb blast sucks all debris back inward on itself before spewing it out for miles in every direction.

Last night, Young brought that storm to the Sprint Center ... well, for part of his two-hour-plus show, at least. He also brought his folksy, crowd-pleasing Harvest self. And, as per his recent obsession, he rattled out some of those kooky new songs about getting behind the wheel of an eco-friendly Lincoln Continental and chooglin' on down to town to drop off the recycling and buy a six-pack of organic beer.

Young and his band took the stage around 9:15, and after the big, thundering, beautiful and ugly strains of opener "Love and Only Love" from 1990's Ragged Glory and a hot-wired version of a song 20 years older, "When You Dance You Can Really Love" from After the Gold Rush, Young turned the ignition on "Fuel Line," a groovy little ditty from his latest, Fork In the Road, which contains the daffy verse The awesome power of electricity/Stored for you in a giant battery/She don't use much though, that's smart for a car.

Well, Neil Young has never stayed in one place. Take Gold Rush. The furious indictment of "Southern Man" has for nearly 40 years stood just a few wax inches from the searching innocence of "Tell Me Why," to no complaints I'm aware of. In recent years, the man who told us about "Cortez the Killer" in '75 has lately been churning out albums every time he gets hung up on something. 2006's Life During War was an impromptu rant against the Bush administration post Katrina. Before that, on Prairie Wind, Mr. Young responded to life crises with a return to the easygoing-country mode of Harvest Moon. And now, we have Fork in the Road, about his passion for clean-burning fuels. It's a wonder he hasn't written an album yet about his frustration over trying to operate his universal remote. (Or has he? Did I miss an album -- or two -- about that very subject?)

Maybe his days of writing classics that sum up the human experience in a few gorgeous, aching lines are behind him, but at least Neil Young doesn't write crap songs. Re-ac-tor is behind him, too.

So, on to the show. Last night's hoedown was a make-up show for the show that got canceled last November. In one of the few times he addressed the crowd, Young apologized, saying "I hope we didn't put you through too much, postponing that other show they booked on Election Night." The Sprint Center, which normally seats about 13,000 or so, was bisected hamburger-style, with the stage at mid-court and a big black curtain behind it. (Creepy aside: Digital marquees around the middle rim of the arena encouraged concertgoers not to shake hands, hug or touch their hands to their face, lest they spread germs.) And the crowd was not sold out, which led to a bunch of people who had paid for cheaper tickets trying to claim empty seats closer to the floor. When it turned out those seats were not actually empty, small pockets of confusion sprang up.

On stage, Young was joined by his wife, Pegi (backup vocals), and his sideman of many decades, Ben Keith (guitar, lap and pedal steel), plus Rick Rosas (bass), Anthony Crawford (guitar, piano, backup vox) and Chad Cromwell (drums). There was also a guy painting abstract oil works on canvases and large planks of wood back stage right. I'm not sure what was up with that action. During the first part of the set, the painter created a Picasso-like picture that looked like an elephant with the head of a balding grocer (to me, at least). Then, during the dark guitar-meltdown of "Change Your Mind," on which the band was joined by the members of opening act Everest for backup vocals, the artist began slathering a sheet of plywood in solid black. That made sense. He vanished for a while, then came back to festoon his paintings with rows of cartoon skulls.

Despite these many brushes with darkness -- hell, do you think Neil Young looks HAPPY when he's rocking? -- the evening was a fairly light, joyous occasion. Neil was glad we came. And for those who didn't creep their lame asses out during "Get Behind the Wheel," the last of those new ones, which immediately and jarringly followed a 15-minute "Down by the River", Neil pulled out all the stops on a cover of the Beatles' "Day in the Life." It was goddamn life affirming -- better, I think, than "All Along the Watchtower," his recent encore closer on this tour, could possibly have been -- and at its raucous, improvisatory climax, he shouldered off his righteous, fucked-up black Les Paul and began ripping the strings out of the beast, whipping the pickups with the strings' beaded ends, creating a feedback storm that sounded like a skyscraper collapsing in slow motion. And then, he set the guitar on its stand and casually walked behind his cargo of still-humming amps and stepped behind the vibraphone his wife had been playing, way up at the back of the stage. He picked up the mallets, plunked out a couple of finishing chords, and flashed a peace sign to everyone in the house.

It doesn't get much completer than that.

Set List
Love and Only Love
When You Dance You Can Really Love
Fuel Line
Are You Ready for the Country
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Pocahantas
Change Your Mind
Cinnamon Girl
Mother Earth
Needle and the Damage Done
Light a Candle
Heart of Gold
Feel Your Love
Old Man
Hit the Road
Speakin' Out
Tonight's the Night
Down By the River
Get Behind the Wheel
Just Singing a Song

Encore
Day in the Life