Neil Young Weld VHS (1991)

From amazon.com

Review This is the video to go with the “Weld” CD. It has the same songs as the 2 CD-set except the classic “Like A Hurricane” and “Farmer John” – it does have an interesting introduction featuring the infamous Roadas (roadies dressed as Jawas) as Jimi Hendrix’s rendition of the Star Spangled Banner is played.
All the music is electric and justifies why Neil is called the godfather of grunge by many people. There is a lot of juicy distortion.

The album features many classic Neil tunes such as “Hey Hey My My”, “Welfare Mothers”, “Cortez The Killer”, “Powderfinger”, “Tonight’s The Night” and “Roll another Number for The Road”. There are also newer classics such as the ultimate rendition of “Rockin’ In The Free World” (forget Pearl Jam’s!)

Obviously the music sounds better from a CD-quality recording than a VHS tape.

It’s very enjoyable to watch Neil and the Horse play, especially on his rampaging solos and thrashing of his guitar.

My only complaint is that the camera focuses too much on the audience and there are some real freaks in there!

Review Man, this one is frustrating. Director Bernard Shakey, who did such terrific work on the “Rust Never Sleeps” and “Live In A Rusted Out Garage” video concerts, really lets us down on this one.

Rather than focusing on Neil and Crazy Horse, the cameras spend far too much time zeroing in on the concertgoers. Yeah, we know that everyone in the crowd knows all the words to all the songs, but to endlessly have to watch them lip synch the words through the better part of this concert is annoying.

We do get to see some fairly hot babes during “Cinnamon Girl,” but the rest of time we get to spend a lot of cring-inducing time viewing average Joes playing air guitar/drums, pumping their fists into the air and singing along with Neil’s songs.

Make no mistake, the band is terrific…Crazy Horse may never have sounded better than on this tour. And they’re a lot of fun to watch…that is, when the cameras feature the band, which is where they should have stayed.

The five stars is for the music and performance of the band.

As a footnote: The album/CD mix for Weld and the Laser Disc (which is what I’m reviewing, transferred to DVD) mixes are markedly different. Neil and Billy Talbot messed with the album mix, adding overdubs and such, after producer David Briggs was satisfied with the finished product. The album/CD resulted in a muddy, bass-heavy mix and bore a “produced by Neil Young and Billy Talbot” credit. The Laser Disc version retains the far-superior David Briggs mixes and production credit goes to David Briggs. Neil Young, in hindsight, has stated the “real” Weld is the Laser Disc.