Photographer's Notes - Neil Young at Red Rocks - July 30, 2003:

At the end of July we were treated to Neil's most recent foray into storytelling, with his song cycle of family love and the reign of terror unleashed by the media on regular people like you, me, and Neil. An ambitious sounding project but really it's presented with all the panache of a grade school production of Annie. Don't get the wrong idea, as the contrast of his lofty ideals, played out in each song complete with actors lip syching the words, an amateurish production comes off as original, folksy and idiosyncratic as its creator.

I can't totally rule out the fact this show was probably most enjoyed by longtime Neil fans, but I found all the songs to be in the classic Neil tradition of his rambling, narrative style. This was most evident in his lone acoustic offering of the night, "Bandit" a song that could have easily appeared on Harvest Moon or Silver and Gold.

Given all this, the highlight of the evening still had to be his encore/2nd set of 7 all-time classic Neil tunes including one of the best versions of Cowgirl in the Sand I have ever heard.

Whether you liked the Greendale material is purely subjective, but you have to give the guy credit that most bands of his era, Stones, Who, and even the Dead wouldn't attempt something like this. For me, Neil is such an original that I almost don't really care what he does just as long as he comes to Red Rocks once a year to do it.


Tony