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In 1971 Neil Young returned home to Massey Hall as part of his Journey Through The Past tour. No one knew at the time that this would become a concert for the ages and no one in the audience expected to listen to ten new songs. In fact, only eight songs that night were familiar to them. A Man Needs A Maid, although with changed lyrics, Old Man, Heart Of Gold (as part of A Man Needs A Maid medley), and The Needle And The Damage Done were all new, although they were part of his set at other appearances during the tour. They later appeared on “Harvest” which was released the following year. Others such as Love In Mind and Dance, Dance, Dance would appear on subsequent albums.

Colin Linden

This concert at Massey Hall was just Young on stage with an acoustic guitar singing the way he does best, from his heart. It was released in 2007 as part of his “Archives Performance Series”, the first release was “Live At The Fillmore East”. As part of the Luminato Festival now going on in Toronto, on Wednesday June 10th some of Canada’s most popular performers are recreating this concert. On stage will be The Cowboy Junkies (Don’t Let It Bring You Down, Love In Mind), Colin Linden (Dance, Dance, Dance), Carol Pope of Rough Trade fame (Ohio), Colin James (Heart Of Gold), Harry Manx (who is a performer worth seeing all on his own), Steven Page formerly of The Barenaked Ladies, Holly Cole and others as they perform the songs in order but with their own flair. Colin James, for instance, is hoping to instil a bit of R&B to Young’s classic.

Steven Page

Neil Young’s career has spanned over four decades and he has influenced and inspired so many artists that you could probably do a six degrees of separation and find that just about every artist has a link to him. If they weren’t inspired directly, then someone who they admire was and so on. It is really hard to extricate Young from the fabric of music history such has been his impact. He is often referred to as the “godfather of grunge” because of his influence on Pearl Jam and Kurt Cobain if in nothing else but their clothing choices. I’m sure the flannel industry spiked during that time period. For many Young made it all right to take a political stand in their music.

I was lucky enough to see Young live at the old Exhibition Stadium back in the ’80s. It was one of the best live shows I’ve been to. People often overlook Young as a guitarist but I can still see him hunched over “Old Black” just wailing during a protracted guitar solo in the middle of Cinnamon Girl. And Like A Hurricane can still give me goose-bumps remembering. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for those lucky enough to have attended this show in 1971. Young was just coming into his own as a songwriter/singer and it must have been wondrous fair to have heard these songs in their embryonic stages. It will be difficult to recreate the magic of that night but these talented musicians will be sure to entertain anyone lucky enough to have tickets to this sold out performance.

The Luminato Festival is one of the best things about Toronto in the summer. You can see some really good music, concerts, theatre, film, or dance. You can listen to some great authors read selected passages from their newest books and your eyes can be boggled by the graphic and visual displays from some very talented photographers and graphic artists. This year musicians such as Randy Bachman, Taj Mahall, Harry Manx (seriously go see him, you will laugh yourself silly and be awed by his guitar work), Emmylou Harris, and Shawn Colvin are performing at various locations for free. Popular author Neil Gaiman will be reading passages from The Graveyard Book to a sold out crowd at the Jane Mallett Theatre. There will also be a Q & A and book signing afterward. Not only is Gaiman the well-liked author of such books as Good Omens, Coraline and The Sandman series, he has also written lyrics to a song recorded by Olga Nunes called A Dream Of Gardens. He should really stick to books. But I digress.

The Luminato Festival, which runs from June 5-14, also held, this past Saturday, The Great Canadian Tune which was also a Neil Young song, Helpless. Luminato invited people to bring their guitars down to the Yonge/Dundas Square and take part in the largest guitar ensemble assembled hoping to break the Guinness World Record and falling just shy. They did set a new Canadian record however. They are also hosting a guitar festival where all week long there will be various guitar related themes on tap. One such show is called Shadow Notes and is an exhibit of the photography of Andy Summers (The Police), Danny Clinch and Ralph Gibson and you might want to take in the Brazilian Guitar Marathon on June 13th. There is still time to catch some great shows but many are already sold out so if you are interested better make up your mind quickly.

You can buy all the music from these artists on iTunes, Amazon and at your regular retailers (who you should support).

In the meantime here are a couple of songs from Neil from that concert:

Neil Young – Dance Dance Dance
Neil Young – Bad Fog Of Loneliness (previously unreleased)
Neil Young – Ohio

And an absolutely stunning cover of Lotta Love by Nicolette Larson who had a number 1 hit with it. Tragically, Larson died much too young of complications from a cerebral edema.:

Nicolette Larson – Lotta Love from her album “Nicolette”

Tags: concert, feature