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I go to see a lot of bands. If I have a good time I generally make sure to see the band again next time they come through town. Right there, some people think I’m nutty. “Didn’t you see Lyle Lovett just a couple of years ago?” they ask. “Yeah, and I had a great time!” I respond. “Well, why are you going to see him again?”
“Because I had a great time…” I say, cocking my head in wonder. Then they shake their heads at me and say something like, “You’re nutty,” before following up with, “I gotta go, I have season tickets for the Senators and they are playing the Blues tonight.”
Nutty.
But what really sets me apart from sanity* is my quirk of going to see the same act several times in a row, an expensive habit that I very much enjoy. Of course I don’t follow this practise with every band. Fan that I am I am not going to see The Who or Roger Waters or ZZ Top two or three nights in a row; these guys play the same, well-rehearsed and choreographed sets of music every night of a tour and I need see them only once per outing. Most bands fall into this category, which saves me tons of money.
However there are three distinct groups of groups that will lure me out to every show I can afford, even for multiple consecutive nights in the same venue, as follows:
1) Bands that I like that play significantly different sets of music at every show: Generally “jam” bands, but most jazz acts certainly fall into this category as well. We’re talking bands like Phish, The Allman Brothers Band, anything Grateful Dead-related, Bill Frisell, The Tragically Hip…
2) My favourite bands in the world: I don’t care if The Rolling Stones play the same show every night. I’m going.
3) Musicians who play as hard as they can every single time they step on a stage, even though they are absurdly famous and could easily maintain their fame by simply coasting through show after show, but thank ye gawds that they don’t. By this I am referring specifically to two artists, Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young. Laurel-resters they are certainly not.
All of this is a heck of a lot of preamble simply to bring us to November 27th, 2007, when I sat in Massey Hall for the second of a three-night run of Neil Young concerts. When he started of with From Hank to Hendrix it was immediately clear that he was going to repeat the same setlist every night, and with very minor (but beautiful) alterations that’s what he did. I remember sitting there being disappointed that such pricey tickets were going to yield the same results for three nights running but I was soon lulled into being thrilled instead. Neil Young is so present-in-the-moment, he is so bloody Zen that he just can’t play the same song twice, any more than you can step into the same river twice. He plays with such conviction, such emotion that it’s like everyone in the room is hearing the song for the first time, Neil included.
Of course I was buoyed with the inclusion of After the Gold Rush at this show; quite possibly my favourite Neil song and one he played only on this night. I was also pleased that he played different encores every night, but I was mostly taken with how much his sheer performance was able to transcend the setlist and make everything sound brand new at each of the three concerts. I tell you, Neil Young could do a three-night run where he just played Cortez the Killer over and over at each show and I would still line up for tickets.
Nutty, huh?
*Of course my sanity is dependant upon the crowd I’m with, as sanity is derived from consensus (truth is not). Most of my friends are in the same musical boat as I am and of course we all think the rest of you are the ones that are, in fact, nutty.
Todd Man Out 