Published on May 26, 1998
While a live album can often capture the sonic ferociousness of
the concert experience, the difficulty comes in if a show features
strong visuals. In the case of Neil Young’s
Live Rust, how do you translate the image of Young being
dwarfed onstage by oversized Fender amplifiers and road cases? How
do you translate Jawa-like characters coming onstage?
Unfortunately, you can’t – and unless you own the video which
captures these images, you’re left with the grainy pictures on the
album jacket and dust sleeves. Be this as it may, if you take away
the visual images from the tour supporting
Rust Never Sleeps,
Live Rust turns out to be a pretty decent effort from Young
and Crazy Horse.
The first portion of the album opens with just Young and an
array of instruments performed solely by Young. Going from the
guitar and harmonica of “Sugar Mountain” to the piano of “After The
Gold Rush” to the incredibly powerful acoustic guitar work on “My,
My, Hey, Hey (Out Of The Blue),” Young acts kind of as an opening
act to himself, the audience yelping with delight all the
while.
Crazy Horse – guitarist/keyboardist Frank Sampedro, bassist
Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina – enter the picture not long
after, quickly running through songs like “Lotta Love” (which the
late Nicollette Sheridan made famous on the AOR circuit), “The
Loner” and “The Needle And The Damage Done”. Surprisingly, this
portion of the show is the weakest link of the chain. Songs like
“When You Dance I Can Really Love” just fail to inspire, and the
overall energy takes a serious dip.
Fortunately, the energy level gets back to above the boiling
point for the second half of the album – the times when Young and
Crazy Horse can actually stretch the music out a bit. It is these
extended songs like “Powderfinger,” “Cortez The Killer” and “Like A
Hurricane” that show the true power and potential of this
pairing.
Despite the definite electric sound to the show, there is one
surprising disappointment: the lack of distortion on the guitars. I
recognize that Young could use it to excess, as evidenced by some
moments on
Weld, but the sound almost is too… well,
pure, in the case of Young.
Live Rust is a decent example of the power that Young and
Crazy Horse had in concert in the late ’70s, and remains a very
solid follow-up to
Rust Never Sleeps.