Live
at the Cellar Door is
the latest release in the Neil Young Archive Series, a series of releases which
similarly to the highly successful Bob Dylan Bootleg Series features a mixture
of already released, as well as unreleased remastered studio and live
recordings. This latest offering is a live recording containing performances
from the six concerts Young performed in 1970 at Washington DCs. Cellar Door.
On here Young treats the
smallish audience to some acoustic performances of tracks off his then just
released album “After the Gold Rush”, mixed in with some old Crazy Horse and
Buffalo Springfield favourites, as well as some earlier renditions of songs
which he had yet released namely “Old Man” and “See the Sky About to Rain”. The
performances on this album feature just Young by himself playing acoustic
guitar and occasionally piano, giving the audience present an unplugged
minimalist interpretation of his country and folk rock compositions. This in
itself works well as his early-70s output was mainly made up of acoustic folk
tracks meant for smaller live settings like the Cellar Door club. It is also
very interesting to hear laidback acoustic versions of songs such as “Cinnamon
Girl” and “Down by the River” of which the original recordings done with Crazy
Horse were exercises in heavily distorted guitar madness.
Live
at the Cellar Door all
and all has much the same feel as the 2007 released “Live at Massey Hall 1971”,
just not as good. “Massey Hall” had an intimacy and a performer-audience
connection which I think is lacking a bit on this album. This seems to have
something to do with the production on “Cellar Door”, with the songs themselves
sounding as if Young could have been sitting in a studio booth playing to
himself, with some overdubbed audience applause thrown in for good measure to
make it appear like it’s live. That’s not to say that all of the tracks on here
are bad performances, or are lacking in quality. There are gorgeous versions of
the Buffalo Springfield song “I Am A Child” and “Only Love Can Break Your Heart”
from “After the Gold Rush” among other gems dotted across the album, it’s just
that if you liked “Live at Massey Hall” which was a brilliant live album
recorded around the same time, you won’t really be missing out if you don’t
hear this one. Live at Cellar Door is
probably best left for Neil Young fanatics and album collectors, or those into
historical and archival recordings.
B
- Sam
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