I went to this concert with very high expectations as I had seen the band perform at the Marquee in Cork in 2009 and they blew me away. I was, inevitably, a little disappointed this time around. Perhaps, I had just built the gig up too much in my mind.
Performance wise I dont think things differed much between this year and last but for some reason the night didn't spark like it did last summer. Maybe, it was the less than sold out crowd. Maybe, I wasn't in the right frame of mind.
The set opened with Woodstock and first half concentrated on the electric material. The sound wasn't great on these electric numbers. Still's fender sound was very loud, sharp and harsh. Also, now that he has sort of refound his mojo, he seems to have started over playing a bit and has sacrificed melody in the proccess. Last year he seemed to play perfectly, this year he seemed to over do it a bit. Generally speaking, I don't think the electric numbers came over very well. They were somehow uninvolving. All the big anthems like Long Time Gone, Deja Vu and Wooden Ships fell somehow flat. Southern Cross, which is a favourite of mine, sounded better instrumentally but the harmony vocals were way off. At various times during the concert I felt that CSN weren't singing harmonies at all, they were just singing along with the melody. Big difference. In terms of instruments whenever Stills laid off the distorted Fender and switched a mellow sounding old Gibson things were much better.
After the intermission the group did a more acoustic set focusing on some material from their forthcoming, Rick Rubin- produced covers album. In this set they did Norwegian Wood, Midnight Rider, Girl From The North Country and Ruby Tuesday. These songs really connected with the audience and got this going for the second half. Midnight Rider was absolutely stunning with Stills playing some great acoustic lead. This set was followed by a truly amazing version of Gennivere performed by Crosby and Nash as a duo. A truly original song done justice by the performance and an absolute masterclass in harmony singing by the two men. This was followed by an ok rendition of Delta.
The electric approach resumed with Cathedral, Our House and a song of Still's that I didn't recognise. They also through in an unneccessary cover of Behind Blue Eyes with Nash taking the lead vocal. The closing song was a very fine go at Almost Cut My hair, the only electric "classic" CSN song that really worked for me.
Due to a mistake on my part I had to leave before the encore so I probably missed Teach Your Children and For What It's Worth. Overall, it was certainly a good night but probably what qualifies as CSN by numbers. The performance really only took off for me and became something special during the acousitc set. This makes me think that acoustic guitars and harmonies are what CSN are really about and despite the ferocious rockers they have in their catalogue being loud isn't always playing to their strengths. But I'm not sure about this either because back in 2009 I thought the electric stuff worked brilliantly!
Other songs on the night included Bluebird, Long May You Run, In Your Name and Marrakesh Express.
Friday, July 2, 2010
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