Reviewed - Neil Young: Heart of Gold: THE last time I saw Neil Young on stage, in a reunion with Crosby, Stills & Nash at Madison Square Gardens in New York, the mildly stoned Arkansas gentleman in the next seat repeatedly exclaimed, "Neil rocks!" Whatever he was taking had not dimmed his perception because, in an epic concert where all four were on prime form, it was Young who electrified the audience when he came centre stage.
The mood is mellower in Jonathan Demme's sublime concert film, which was shot over two nights in Nashville at the Ryman Auditorium, a renowned former venue for the Grand Ole Opry, in August 2005. Now 60 and looking it, Young was facing into surgery for a brain aneurysm the following week, heightening the melancholy wistfulness of the event.
After a few brief interviews, Demme takes us inside the Ryman where director of photography Ellen Kuras supervised the eight cameras unobtrusively capturing the concert for posterity. The first half constitutes the premiere performance of Young's meditative autobiographical Prairie Wind album. Laconic as ever, Young introduces the songs with reflections on his youth on a farm in Canada, memories of his late father, the empty nest when his daughter left home for college, and the old Hank Williams guitar he bought 30 years ago and still plays.
Changing suits for the second half, Young launches into a rhapsodic performance of 10 classics from his back catalogue, including Old Man (which never sounded better), The Needle and the Damage Done (an acoustic solo) and the movie's title song, Heart of Gold. His voice as beautifully plaintive as ever, Young surrounds himself with backing singers - among them his wife, Pegi Young, Emmylou Harris and a gospel chorus - and a team of veteran musicians, some of them collaborators for over 30 years.
In sharp contrast to his hyperactive staging of the Talking Heads film Stop Making Sense, Demme's direction is unfussy, avoiding any abrupt cutting and adopting a reverential simplicity as the spotlight shines on Young, his entourage and his memorable songs. This celebration of his musical genius is an experience to cherish in all its pervasive warmth and honesty and more than a few spine-tingling moments. For us aficionados, it is sheer bliss.
