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ROCK of AGES: Music greats CSNY still have those harmonies
Monday, February 11, 2002
By John Sinkevics
The Grand Rapids Press
In David Crosby's 1988 drug- and recovery-laced autobiography, "Long Time Gone," he marvels at the wondrous harmonies he fashioned with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash.
"What really put us over the top was the vocals," he wrote.
"When we sang, people had to sit down. They just couldn't handle it."
On Sunday night in Grand Rapids, a sold-out Van Andel Arena crowd did just the opposite: They couldn't help but stand up -- over and over again -- to pay homage to the classic harmonies of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Neil Young, even if the voices were raspier and a bit lower than those most of us remember spilling forth from our vinyl LPs three decades ago.
From the familiar strains of 1970's "Carry On," which opened the show, to Buffalo Springfield's anthemic 1966 hit, "For What It's Worth," that closed the evening 26 songs and more than three hours later, CSNY's third concert of its "Tour of America" proved, on some nights at least, there's plenty of bite left in these super-group rock dinosaurs who've endured more highs (tsk, tsk) and lows, and more splits and reconciliations, than a Hollywood marriage.
Once again, much of the credit (and spark) rests with Young, whose boundless energy and biting guitar work has a way of bringing out the best in the rest of the band and igniting some real rock 'n' roll fury.
In that 1988 autobiography, written with help from screenwriter Carl Gottlieb, Crosby conceded having Young around is "like dropping nitroglycerine into the mix. He's such a powerful force as a performer and as a creative person that the soup turns explosive right away. It's either very bad or fantastic ..."
Chalk Sunday down in the latter category, as Young stormed through a whole barn full of guitars, laying down everything from pretty acoustic licks on "Harvest Moon" to downright scary, chest-pounding rock riffs on the selection "Let's Roll," his take on the heroes who thwarted one of the Sept. 11 plane hijackings.
Stomping around the stage like a dancing circus bear, the legendary Young's unbridled, passionate playing style and extraordinary guitar tone made it tough to concentrate for long on anybody else.
He was at his crazed-mountain-man best pounding out the up-tempo favorites "Cinnamon Girl," "Woodstock" and "Rockin' in the Free World," which finished up the band's second set. Young even managed to toss in a couple of melody lines from "The Star-Spangled Banner," prompting chants of "USA, USA" from some in the arena crowd of 12,000.
But this wasn't just the Y-plus-CSN show.
For one thing, organist Booker T.
... see CSNY, B2
Jones, bassist Duck Dunn and drummer Steve Potts played the perfect sidemen -- ratcheting up volume levels when merited and keeping everything clicking along almost invisibly when not.
And unlike CSNY's uneven reunion concert at the Palace of Auburn Hills two years ago (which launched the foursome's "CSNY2K" tour), Sunday night's show benefited from Crosby and Nash's solid harmonies on oldies such as "Our House" and "Long Time Gone," as well as newer songs, including Nash's "I Used to Be King" and Crosby's "Dream For Him" (though the banal lyrics on the latter certainly stretched for a rhyme). These aren't the same CSNY harmonies the Woodstock generation grew up with, but they're every bit as distinctive: a unique blend of voices unlike any other in rock music.
Even Stills, whose hoarse echo of a once-captivating set of vocal cords strained to get through "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and "Helplessly Hoping," fit the bill perfectly with his bluesy, emotion-drenched voice when tackling an old Booker T. Jones R& number while playing electric piano.
And the four veteran rockers may not have harmonized any better instrumentally than they did on "Almost Cut My Hair," their song-ending, four-guitar assault led by Young's blistering leads.
Comments, questions? E-mail me: jsinkevics@gr-press.com. |
