Global Festival Sept.29th Central Park,NYC

Im gonna try and make it to the bar but not sure if the timing will work out. I am swinging into Staten Island to scoop my buddy, then head back into Hoboken to catch the PATH.

If I cant make it to the bar is there a secret Inforoo call I can make at the show? Perhaps a loud squawk or the ol dying giraffe.

Live stream has been great! More Neil than expected. Ysy!! With ya'll in spirit.

I hope someone realized you guys got to see Neil during a real Harvest Moon last night!

Had a great time at the show. Wish I could have met up with everyone pre show but Im sure there will be plenty of other opportunities.

Overall the show was great. Finally got up to the park to catch the end of the Band of Horses set. John Legend was a nice little surprise. Although Black Keys focused mainly on new material, I think they made the most of their set. They played like 15 songs. As expected, Foo rocked it, with an awesome set of hits. And of course Neil absolutely wailed. Loved some of the new material, especially Walk Like A Giant. Good stuff right there. And we got our collaboration, Rockin in the Free World was perfect.

Yea those drunk guys (may have been more than drunk...not sure) were obnoxious. Really started to mess with the enjoyment of the show and they got a real tongue-lashing from Bonzai's friend after one of the assholes pushed his buddy right into her, knocking her to the ground.

Those guys are the worst. Their friend got carted away by EMS (and he wasn't really conscious as they were taking him away) but none of them left their spot. Pretty ridiculous. One of the few drawbacks to seeing live music is potentially dealing with those dicks.

That would possibly explain why there was a girl screaming at the top of her lungs about how one of the guys was an assh0le right to his face. I assumed she was dating the guy that they didn't give a crap about and let him be taken away but then I saw her rolling on the ground making out with one of the other dudes. I definitely think they were on something if not just extremely drunk.

In the end....if you can't handle your stuff well enough to not mess with other's enjoyments than get your shit together. It's not young guys either...which people usually blame the problems on. There was an older gentleman who must have been at least 55 who was constantly being a nuisance. This was less obnoxious because it was clearly just a guy who drank too much and couldn't maintain his balance...so while my foot was stomped on a few times and he had to be collected by his buddies a few times it wasn't as bad as the first group - who were creating their own "mosh pit", wrestling, pushing each other, and just generally being dicks.

I'm just so happy those guys left before Neil. Totally changed the experience. Instead of liking the music but constantly keeping an eye on things I could just pay attention to Neil

I'm sure you've heard this song before (many have) but I always go back to this song as one of my favorite of Neil's. Many know that this is about addiction but not everyone knows just how personal this song really is.





Here's a bit of the history and a quote from Neil about it:

"The Needle and the Damage Done" is a song by Neil Young that describes the descent into heroin addiction of musicians he knew. It was written about the heroin use of his Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten, and previews the theme of "Tonight's the Night", a song that addresses the heroin overdose and death of Bruce Berry, a roadie for Young and his band Crazy Horse.

"The Needle and the Damage Done" first appeared on the Harvest album in 1972. The song was recorded live rather than in the studio. It appears on the compilation albums Decade and Greatest Hits. On the handwritten liner notes included in Decade, Young had this to say about the song: "I am not a preacher, but NO NO WORD!!! killed a lot of great men."

A recording of the song from 1971 was part of the 2007 album Live at Massey Hall 1971. The album captured Young's introduction of his song thus:

"Ever since I left Canada, about five years ago or so... and moved down south... found out a lot of things that I didn't know when I left. Some of 'em are good, and some of 'em are bad. Got to see a lot of great musicians before they happened... before they became famous... y'know, when they were just gigging. Five and six sets a night... things like that. And I got to see a lot of, um, great musicians who nobody ever got to see. For one reason or another. But... strangely enough, the real good ones... that you never got to see was... 'cause of, ahhm, heroin. An' that started happening over an' over. Then it happened to someone that everyone knew about. So I just wrote a little song.

And here's some more factoids about it:

This song is about heroin use and what it will do to you in the end. Young wrote it about Danny Whitten, one of the original members of his band Crazy Horse. In 1971, Young went on tour and hired Crazy Horse and Nils Lofgren as backup. During rehearsals, Whitten was so high on heroin that he couldn't even hold up his guitar. Young fired him, gave Whitten 50 bucks (for rehab) and a plane ticket back to Los Angeles. Upon reaching LA, Whitten overdosed on alcohol and Valium, which killed him.

As quoted in Neil Young: Long May You Run: The Illustrated History, Neil Young says of the tragic death of Whitten: "I felt responsible. But really there was nothing I could do. I mean, he was responsible. But I thought I was for a long time. Danny just wasn't happy. It just all came down on him. He was engulfed by this NO NO WORD!!!. That was too bad. Because Danny had a lot to give. boy. He was really good."

Incredibly, this wouldn't be Young's only loss from heroin to be commemorated in song. Longtime friend and roadie Bruce Berry would also overdose on heroin just months after Whitten. Berry's song is "Tonight's The Night," on the album of the same name.

Now, this isn't the only song that addresses this tragic loss due to NO NO WORD!!! that Neil dealt with. Quite possibly my favorite Neil album is "Tonight's the Night" which has a lot of inspiration from the pain in his life at the time. Here are some details about Bruce Berry and the album:

Tonight's the Night is a direct expression of grief. Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten and Young's friend and roadie Bruce Berry had both died of NO NO WORD!!! overdoses in the months before the songs were written. The title track mentions Berry by name, while Whitten's guitar and vocal work highlight "Come on Baby Let's Go Downtown"; the latter was recorded live in 1970. The song would later appear, unedited, on a live album from the same concerts, Live at the Fillmore East, with Whitten credited as the sole author.

Fans have long speculated that an alternate version of Tonight's the Night exists. Neil Young's father, Scott Young, wrote of it in his memoir, Neil and Me:

"Ten years after the original recording, David Briggs and I talked about Tonight's the Night, on which he had shared the producer credit with Neil. At home a couple of weeks earlier he had come across the original tape, the one that wasn't put out. "I want to tell you, it is a handful. It is unrelenting. There is no relief in it at all. It does not release you for one second. It's like some guy having you by the throat from the first note, and all the way to the end." After all the real smooth stuff Neil had been doing, David felt most critics and others simply failed to read what they should have into Tonight's the Night -- that it was an artist making a giant growth step. Neil came in during this conversation, which was in his living room. When David stopped Neil said, "You've got that original? I thought it was lost. I've never been able to find it. We'll bring it out someday, that original."

Included with the vinyl release of Tonight's the Night is a cryptic message written by Young: "I'm sorry. You don't know these people. This means nothing to you."

There is just so much emotion in these songs (and album). Listening to the lyrics of all the songs and knowing the backstory really helped this stuff resonate with me. I remember first listening to Tonight's the Night on a road trip with a friend who introduced the history to me and was blown away by it. It's an underrated/lesser known album to people who aren't Neil fanatics but it's essential listening as far as I'm concerned.



I think to "get" Neil you need to do a little bit of research/history first. I didn't finish it (need to get a copy because my roommate took his back at the time) but Shakey, the biography of Neil Young, has a lot of interesting details about young Neil and his rise to stardom.




Now I'll just leave you with this:



Bruce Berry was a working man
He used to load that Econoline van.
A sparkle was in his eye
But his life was in his hands.

Well, late at night
when the people were gone
He used to pick up my guitar
And sing a song in a shaky voice
That was real as the day was long.

Tonight's the night, yes it is,
tonight's the night
Tonight's the night, yes it is,
tonight's the night.

Early in the mornin'
at the break of day
He used to sleep
until the afternoon.
If you never heard him sing
I guess you won't too soon.

'Cause people let me tell you
It sent a chill
up and down my spine
When I picked up the telephone
And heard that he'd died
out on the mainline.








Note: all of this isn't supposed to "get you into" Neil Young. It's more just my story of how some songs and albums really resonated with me. Now, I'm just glad that he's still playing up to the level of a younger Neil as opposed to guys like Bob Dylan who are nowhere close to their old stage presence.

The two times I've seen Dylan in the past few years he is positioned behind a keyboard that may or may not be plugged in (can't hear it or tell a difference when he played it) and he didn't walk around at all. Literally just kinda bobbed from side to side a tiny bit, if at all.

I didn't mean he can't still look cool or shake up the setlists. I mean literal/physical stage presence....like what they do up on stage. Neil Young is still stomping around the stage, playing harsh solos up against his colleagues, rocking out with his whole body. He looks like a much younger man. While Bob Dylan (at least what I've seen) stays in one position and tries his best to get the lyrics out but for the most part sounds like garbage (vocally....his backing band is really great).

I'm not saying Dylan needs to be running around on stage. I just mean by this all that I've left Bob Dylan shows pretty disappointed and i've left Neil Young shows with my expectations met and exceeded.

I also want to make clear that Bob Dylan is one of my all time favorites and I can listen to his albums/songs any time and love it. It's just the current Bob Dylan who I have seen live leaves me wishing that I could go back to Greenwich Village in the 60's and watch him at cafes.

Its all good, I got the tone of the post. I just realized after that I should have clarified what I meant or used a different word.

Better late than never?


Quacker, ITM, KevBot, Bonzai, ODB and some friends


MizValentine, ITM, Bonzai, Quacker


^Pretty sure ITM is howling at the moon


Macho InfoMen: ITM, Quacker, KevBot, ODB


Quacker, KevBot


ITM, KevBot, Quacker, ODB, SRP and friends


Bonzai, Quacker


Bonzai, ITM


MizV and MrV