Neil Young Roxy: Tonight’s the Night Live (2018)

From thevinyldistrict.com

When the legendary LA Roxy Theatre opened its doors on July 20, 1973, it was another legend who greeted the club’s first customers. Neil Young, who was then, as he put it, down in the ditch in the wake of the drug-related deaths of two close friends, played a triumphant bummer of a set with a band calling themselves the Stray Gators. And at long last the show (or three of them actually) are available on vinyl in the form of 2018’s Roxy: Tonight’s the Night Live.

The studio versions of the songs Neil plays on the live disc wouldn’t see the light of day until 1975’s Tonight’s the Night, but Young more or less runs through them all here, omitting only “Come on Baby Let’s Go Downtown” (which was actually recorded live at the Fillmore East in 1970 with Crazy Horse guitarist and drug casualty and Danny Whitten and adding “Walk On” from 1974’s On the Beach.

On both the live and studio LPs Young sounds like a man trying to come to terms with the anguish he was feeling after the drug-related deaths of both Whitten and roadie pal Bruce Berry. Don’t let the Vegas-style stage patter Young engages in between songs on Roxy: Tonight’s the Night Live fool you; Young was one hurting individual.

And it wasn’t just Neil who was feeling gloomy; America’s youth were suffering a collective bring down from the loss of the idealism that marked the psychedelic sixties. On both LPs Young puts paid to the crystal visions of the Age of Aquarius, and channels the pain and disillusionment of a generation of innocents ravaged by hard drugs, Altamont, and the Manson family.

This loss of hope is best spelled out on LP standouts “Tired Eyes” and “Roll Another Number for the Road,” the latter of which offers up a perfect expression of post-Altamont cynicism and despair:

“I’m not goin’ back to Woodstock for a while / Though I long to hear that lonesome hippie smile / I’m a million miles away from that helicopter day / No I don’t believe I’ll be goin’ back that way.”

And things take an ever darker turn on the mostly spoken word “Tired Eyes,” a chilling tale of a dope deal gone horribly awry:

“Well he shot four men in a cocaine deal / And he left them lying in an open field / Full of old cars with bullet holes in the mirrors / He tried to do his best but he could not.”

Young then channels the cold-blooded callousness born of watching friends succumb to a seemingly epidemic of hard drugs and violence; instead of compassion, the speaker points the finger:

“Well tell me more, tell me more, tell me more / I mean was he a heavy doper… or was he just a loser? / He was a friend of yours…“

Not all of these songs strike a mournful note. “Mellow My Mind” even offers some levity, in so far as Young makes no effort to sing the damn thing. On both the studio and live LPs he sounds like a cat being strangled, breaking words on the wheel and straining in vain to hit the high notes. It’s the single worst vocal performance I’ve ever heard, and I love Neil for it. And he even coins a new word, “casualize.” Is that wonderful or what? It’s Casualize Friday, everybody!

Roxy: Tonight’s the Night Live is Young’s shambolic attempt to turn grief into art; on it he stares into the abyss and the abyss blinks first. It’s Neil’s journey to the end of night, and the miracle is he returned at all. Asked about Tonight’s the Night Live, Young replied, “I have no idea where the fuck it came from, but there it was.”

And here it is, in all it’s ragged glory, the flag hanging above Young’s Fort Sumter.

Neil Young Roxy – Tonights The Night Live (2018)

From pitchfork.com

In 1973, Neil Young played the inaugural show at the Los Angeles club, The Roxy. The reissued recording captures a night that turned his famously bracing album into something warmer and vibrant.

Walk the city blocks of Los Angeles and imagine its bohemian yesteryear, when strung-out sex parties and impromptu jamborees emanated from the storefronts and bungalows. Neil Young’s foothold in the musician circles of Topanga, Laurel Canyon, and Hollywood are well documented. Further proof of his contribution to the cultural fabric of Los Angeles is that he consecrated some of the city’s most celebrated clubs. A new reissue of live performances from his celebrated diamond in the rough, Tonight’s The Night—released in conjunction with Record Store Day—aims to recapture the intrigue tied up with Young’s tenure in L.A. in the early 1970s.

When the now-famous nightclub The Roxy flung open its doors in West Hollywood in September 1973, Young and his band, the Santa Monica Flyers, were invited to be its inaugural live act. They were fresh out of a makeshift recording studio in Hollywood, where Young, pedal steel player Ben Keith, multi-instrumentalist Nils Lofgren, and the Crazy Horse rhythm of bassist section Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina had been recording live jam sessions. These hours in the studio also served as a musical wake for two friends who’d recently died, Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten and roadie Bruce Berry. Young meditates on the loss in its namesake opener: His friend had overdosed on heroin and cocaine, and Young identified too acutely with the tragedy: “Out on the mainline,” as he put it.

Young and the Flyers spent the summer months of 1973 playing through their grief, forming the bones of what would become Young’S 1975 album Tonight’s The Night. They worked from 11 p.m. until sunrise, cruising—or flying, if you will—down Santa Monica Boulevard to sleep off the daylight hours at the Sunset Marquis hotel. When they hit The Roxy with the brand new songs they’d been rehearsing for months, the group was a lockstep machine that propelled, for example, “Tonight’s the Night,” “Albuquerque,” and “Tired Eyes” from insular meditation on death and its trappings to an amped-up catharsis to adoring fans. In the studio, Tonight’s the Night was imposing and dark, it sliced through the speaker like a razor. Live, though, these songs from Young’s famous “Ditch Trilogy” become warmer, more vibrant and alive. It’s a testament to Young’s indelible songwriting that a slight alteration in speed or sound can change the emotional tenor of his songs, and it’s what makes this reissue a worthy addition for both avid Young collectors and casual fans.

Roxy – Tonight’s the Night Live imbues the songs with the spirit of a specific place in time, at the Sunset Strip’s newest digs, where Young’s soon-to-be label boss David Geffen was a face in the crowd. Young tips his hat to Geffen specifically in a chatty interlude included between “New Mama” and “Roll Another Number (For the Road),” and there are other improvised bridges like polka mainstay “Roll Out the Barrel,” which the audience audibly digs via claps and whoops. That a group of people could be so jubilant about songs they’d never heard before is unfathomable in today’s firehose of festival reunions, but it speaks to the magnitude of Young’s pull in 1973.

The existence of alternative studio versions of Tonight’s the Night have long been the subject of much speculation among Young scholars. While this release won’t scratch that itch, it is still a perfect time capsule back to a wilder L.A., featuring nine songs from the original album played in a different order and in a more joyful spirit. “Walk On,” from Young’s 1974 album On the Beach, appears too. If the original recordings of Tonight’s the Night are a honey and hash-soaked lamentation, Roxy – Tonight’s the Night Live is a salve for such palpable tragedy in the grand tradition of a live communion.

Neil Young’s ‘Roxy – Tonight’s The Night Live’ Encompasses Musical Ragged Glory (2018)

From glidemagazine.com

The ever-so-loose aggregation dubbed ‘The Santa Monica Flyers,’ appearing on Neil Young’s Roxy-Tonight’s The Night Live has more than a little in common with his most regular accompanists of recent years, Lukas Nelson and Promise of the Real. Comprised of the Crazy Horse rhythm section of drummer Ralph Molina and bassist Billy Talbot, augmented with lap/pedal steel player Ben Keith and multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Nils Lofgren, this fivesome, as fronted here by the Canadian rock icon, reminds how ‘sloppy’ can be positive virtue when it comes to playing songs that as cut close-to-the-bone as those on Tonight’s The Night.

And it is this the final entry in what would come to be known as Young’s ‘ditch trilogy,’  following Time Fades Away and On the Beach, upon which this selection of ten concert culls is based.  Neil had just emerged with these very same cohorts from the studio sessions that formed the basis of the effort that, with its two companion pieces, once and for all defining the man’s willfully idiosyncratic nature: from the very start of the set, introduced by Bill Graham in 1973 at a then brand-new West Hollywood California club, the quintet displays a confidence that equals its abandon, particularly on “Albuquerque,”building inexorably (but deceptively so) toward the emphatic conclusion in front of a rowdy crowd.

Captured here in all its ramshackle glory, originally under the supervision of Neil’s confidante and adviser, the late David Briggs, the fivesome’s ragged performance encompasses most of, but not quite all, the entire TTN song sequence.  ”Borrowed Tune” is omitted as is the live take of “Downtown” (a Crazy Horse cut led by then recently-deceased guitarist/vocalist Danny Whitten), while “Lookout Joe,” recorded with ‘The Stray Gators’ band that toured with Young in support of his  solo breakthrough Harvest, is missing as well. But, as on the eventual official LP release, two versions of “Tonight’s The Night” appear here, all of which has been mastered from the original analog tapes, with further post-production by John Hanlon for the sake of this release (the genesis of which Neil recounts in some detail with his liner notes).

The results of those efforts include  “Walk On” as a welcome and emphatic conclusion. The somewhat upbeat nature of the opener of OTB, in keeping with the tongue-in-cheek likes of Young’s between-song repartee, also serves to reaffirm this archive release and by extension, the original title, as a statement of purpose. That said, the very spontaneity of the Roxy performance neither may hold only limited appeal for the casual fan of the man; while closers of the now forty-five-year-old shows were the crowd-pleasing likes of “Cowgirl in the Sand,” no such famous and familiar tunes appear here; instead, with the reflective likes“Mellow My Mind” and “World on a String,” Neil and company here confront the psychic shock arising from the passing of the aforementioned Whitten (and CSNY roadie Bruce Berry), the subdued fragility of which the fivesome counters with deliberate acoustic guitar and piano, plus high-harmony vocals, arranged for “New Mama.”

Throughout, Lofgren, Keith, Talbot and Molina are as engaged as their leader, perhaps questionably so on the wobbly “Roll Another Number (For The Road)” or the almost terminally world-weary likes of “Tired Eyes.” And “Speakin’ Out” belies its title because the leader radiates little clarity of mind (in keeping with his rambling between-song repartee). Even so, Young clearly has a connection with his bandmates and it’s a reciprocal bond that imbues the musicianship with a tangible intensity if a somewhat guarded sort.

The superficially tenuous, but fundamentally sound alliance of these musicians carries those traits that have earmarked the most durable work Neil has offered over the years, that is, a decided lack of affectation combined with an engaging vulnerability. As a result, the nearly half a decade that’s passed since the recording of Tonight’s The Night, Live only renders it an even more formidable entry into this artist’s official discography, much like last year’s studio archive,  Hitchhiker.  And while this latest title admittedly gains some punch as a companion piece to the recently-released PARADOX (Original Music From The Film), Roxy will easily stand on its own, likes its counterpart a somewhat puzzling, but nevertheless provocative product of Neil Young’s unusually fertile creative mind.