Neil Young And Crazy Horse - Live At The Fillmore East March 6 & 7, 1970

by Anthony Strutt

published: 29 / 11 / 2006

Neil Young And Crazy Horse - Live At The Fillmore East March 6 & 7, 1970

Label: 9362444292
Format: CD

Excellent recording of two Neil Young and Crazy Horse shows from 1970 at the legendary San Francisco venue the Fillmore, the first ever release from the Neil Young Archive

Review

'Live at the Fillmore 1970' is the first ever release from the Neil Young Archive, but the sleeve says this is the second disc so maybe the first was pulled. Rumours had it a few years back that there was going to be a 60 CD box set of Archive material, but that hasn't shown life anywhere at all yet. This was originally remastered back in 1997 as a trailer on Neil Young's website www.neilyoung.com proves. There is a version with a DVD with it, but the DVD version has no filmed footage and is just in 5.1 surround stereo with an added gallery of photos to assist. The Fillmore is a legendary San Francisco venue which was owned by the late Bill Graham. The other thing that makes this very special is it features the first line up of Crazy Horse, and the now departed Danny Whitten, a great songwriter in his own right, who died of a drugs overdose in 1972, and who Neil wrote his sad tribute to, 'The Needle and the Damage Done'. Danny wrote 'I Don't Want to Talk about It' which Rod Stewart covered and made huge years later. Sadly only five songs from each night still exist. This features six of those songs, of which two are very long work outs but then so were the LP versions. It opens with 'Everybody Knows This is Nowhere' from the first Neil Young and Crazy Horse album of the same name from 1969. which is very laid back and well paced considering it is live. It doesn't sound too far removed from the LP version, although it features a few more backing vocals. Rarity 'Winterlong', follows, which features the whole band singing along to it. 'Down By the River, a twelve minute plus track about 'Killing Your Lover', which is also from 'Everybody Knows This is Nowhere' is as awesome as it is on record. It features perfect middle 8 guitar solos which come into play quite early on on this half instrumental track. 'Wonderin' is a track from a forthcoming album of the time that didn't eventually appear. Very short in comparison to the last track with a running time of just over two and a half minutes, it is narrative in tone and, sung in a sad country vein, sounds somewhat dated. 'Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown' didn't finally emerge until 1973 and Neil's 'Tonight's the Night' album, rather than straightaway as originally promised, and features Danny on most of the lead vocals. 'Cowgirl in the Sand' ends the album, and, like the version which appears on 'Everybody Knows This is Nowhere', is basically a band jam. A full-on rock anthem, of which a big chunk is instrumental, it goes on for much longer than the LP version and for the beautiful 14 and a half minutes of pure guitar genius which is Neil Young and Crazy Horse.