Neil Young
Recommended
This event is in the past
Fri May 17, 2019, 8 pm
Keller Auditorium
Downtown Portland (Portland)
$59.50 - $2500
Neil Young’s got the itch again. The 73-year-old singer/songwriter is in a flurry of activity, with a short string of Pacific Northwest solo acoustic dates—including tonight’s intimate show at the Keller Auditorium—immediately followed by a plugged-in full-band tour, a run that includes a show in Eugene on May 23. Oregon diehards will probably need to attend both, as each side of Young’s acoustic/electric nickel is a distinctly different experience: History shows us that the acoustic show will include gentle favorites from pastoral albums like Harvest and, uh, Harvest Moon, while the electric show, with backing band Promise of the Real, will probably feature epic, feedback-drenched meltdowns on chestnuts like “Hey Hey, My My” and “Love and Only Love.” But there’s a wild card at play this time, too: Young just recorded a new album in the Colorado Rockies with his oldest, greatest, raggedy-ass-est backing band Crazy Horse, so chances are pretty good he’ll want to try out some of those new tunes in front of a crowd before the record comes out this fall. To further complicate things, he’s also got an archival release on the way: Tuscaloosa, a 1973 live recording from the gloriously shambolic arena tour that gave us the brilliant Time Fades Away album. If Young feels like offering a mixture of new Crazy Horse tunes and some of the rarely performed Time Fades Away repertoire—and performing them both solo and with a band—then these shows might be some of the best he’s ever done.
by Ned Lannamann