In Toronto, Neil Young And Crazy Horse Reject Nostalgia By Showing A Sold-out Crowd That Rock ‘N’ Roll Will Never Die

“Hey hey, my my,” Neil Young sang late in his sold-out show at Toronto’s Budweiser Stage on Monday, “rock ‘n’ roll can never die.”

When Young and Crazy Horse first released Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) in 1979, the idea of rock music dying would have been a ridiculous consideration. Even if the song was meant as an elegy for classic rock, the towering, potent delivery contradicted that notion.

In ‘79. Young was in his mid-thirties – a fogie by the standards of the day, but sounding mighty and muscled in retrospect. Arriving with the Horse in Toronto, he is now 78. Drummer Ralph Molina and bassist Billy Talbot are both two years older. With them for the Love Earth Tour is rhythm guitarist Lukas Nelson (son of Willie).

The quartet did not seem to be delivering distorted funnels of metallic grunge as much as tapping into a furious life force much greater than itself. Meaning? It is as if Young and the Horse are not the engine. Instead, they harness and ride a mystical power source.

Before the show, the gates had been closed as a precaution. With lightning forecast, concertgoers were instructed to take shelter. The electric storm never came. Actually it did, in the form of a potent, gloriously ragged two hours of classics and deep cuts. That the evening did not feel nostalgic is a tribute to Young’s integrity.

The born Torontonian and long-time American resident appeared from stage-right, leading Talbot and Molina behind him. Nelson came from the left. Young held his already plugged-in Les Paul guitar; roadies dressed in lab coats outfitted Talbot and Nelson with their instruments. The stage was decorated with giant prop road cases and a façade of cartoonishly tall Fender amplifiers.

The first of 18 songs was Cortez the Killer, a hypnotic drone-rocker about Spanish conqueror Hernán Cortés. For the non fan, the sprawling piece might be as appealing as listening to sludge dry. For enthusiasts like myself, the narcotic groove and heavy hum centres the soul.

Cortez the Killer has been a concert staple since the 1970s, but for this tour – Young’s first fully-fledged schedule with the Horse in a decade – the song was presented with a recently unearthed lost verse about a slaughter and “no one’s here to set me free” added in.

Young wore patched jeans and a train driver’s cap and top. (After three songs, including a well-received Cinnamon Girl, he had removed a flannel shirt – grunge rock’s hallmark fabric.) His white sideburns defy fashion. The man rejects modernity.

Though Young is often chatty during his solo acoustic shows, he talked less with the Horse. If his “How you doin’ out there?” was not rhetorical the first time he asked his Toronto audience, it certainly was by the fifth.

Before Scattered (Let’s Think About Livin’), he spoke of his producer, David Briggs, who died in 1995. The song from that era was a tribute: “Like a comet painted on the sky, like an old soul, over darkness you’ll fly.” When the song was over, Young pointed to the heavens.

He then mentioned the “beautiful sky” beyond the venue: “You can’t see it. You’re looking at me.” One natural phenomenon is as a good as another.

For Like a Hurricane, an organ outfitted with angel wings descended from the rafters but never fully landed on the stage. As Nelson hits its keys, the instrument swayed like a summer-afternoon hammock.

Through it broke once during Powderfinger, Young’s shaky tenor was intact, cutting through the fuzzed-out sonic waves – a voice above the storm, for you metaphor freaks.

Perhaps the concert’s most surreal moment occurred during the sprawling murder ballad Down by the River. There is nothing quite like a sold-out crowd of 16,000 or so people singing “I shot my baby” to make one feel alive.

The evening began with the harmonious, upbeat appearance of Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping, the New York-based anti-consumerists and climate-change crusaders who serve as the tour’s unannounced opening act.

The ecologically concerned Young preached a bit too. On the shambolic Vampire Blues, he addressed Big Oil: “I’m a vampire, babe, suckin’ blood from the earth.” Later, he asked the crowd about its “favourite planet.” Another rhetorical question.

Young’s most visible protest had to do with the venue itself, Budweiser Stage. On the rock troubadour’s website, it is listed as the “Sponsored By Nobody Stage.” Remember that 1988′s This Note’s for You was a statement against corporate sponsorship: “Ain’t singing for Miller; don’t sing for Bud.”

He did not perform that song in Toronto, but he apparently stipulated that the venue’s signature beers (Budweiser and its lighter and fruitier variations) not be sold during his concert. Local Mill Street Brewery products were available. Is Young aware that Mill Street is owned by Labatt, which is itself the property of the Bud-brewing Anheuser-Busch InBev?

Young himself occasionally sipped from a bottle of beer, brand unknown. For a three-song acoustic set, Crazy Horse left the stage – “the drummer relaxes and waits between shows” – for a breather. With a rack harmonica around his neck, the singer-songwriter presented Comes a Time, Heart of Gold and Human Highway.

The group returned for a one-song encore, the aforementioned Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black), followed by a second encore set comprised of Don’t Be Denied and Roll Another Number (For the Road). There are seven more Love Earth Tour shows in Canada to come in July, beginning with a return to Toronto’s Budweiser Stage on July 8.

Young told us that “Once you’re gone, you can’t come back.” If the rocker whose career was resuscitated by the release of the 1989 album Freedom has taught us anything, it is that this rule is simply not true.