Neil Young and others at Hyde Park's British Summer Time

After seeing Midlake on Thursday night I caught an early train to London the following morning. A pleasant stroll around Covent Garden was followed by a bite to eat in Chinatown and then a walk across to the southbank of the Thames for a showing of the remastered version of the 1964 Beatles film, 'A Hard Day's Night'.

And I admit to finding it almost as enjoyable as I did when I saw it as a 12 or 13 year old upon it's release when I was too young and naive to appreciate the significance of John Lennon sniffing a Coke bottle. Young and innocent times! Anyway the film is still a good laugh and of course the music coming through the cinema sound system was magnificent.

On the walk back across the river, Waterloo Bridge was to our right, bathed in the golden light of the setting sun. Not quite a Waterloo Sunset I'm afraid, but surely the next best thing.


Saturday was all about the British Summer Time Festival at Hyde Park where Neil Young & Crazy Horse were topping the bill. First however there were decisions to be made about who else to see appearing on the various stages scattered around the festival site. The Webb Sisters beckoned to begin with. 

Charley (guitar) and Hattie (harp and mandolin) are perhaps best known to us for having backed Leonard Cohen on most of his recent tours. For forty five minutes or so, they kept a fairly large crowd enthralled with their brand of Americana style music (though the girls hail from Kent, England) despite the fact that the temperatures inside this smallish marquee, soared to ridiculous levels.

We failed to see Phosphorescence owing to the crowds trying to get into that venue, so decisions had to be made as to who we would see. Going our separate ways I decided to catch Caitlin Rose followed by Midlake in the same venue (the Barclaycard Theatre). In between I did manage to catch most of The National's set on the main stage though I confess that I have never really warmed to their music.

Midlake performed for about fifty minutes so it was a shortened version of the set I had seen two days earlier. Nevertheless, being situated further back from the stage, I found the sound to be more agreeable and I thoroughly enjoyed their set.

Then of course, it came to the reason we were all there. The main event - Neil Young & Crazy Horse.

As I've often reported, with Neil Young you are never sure what you are going to get. Even with Crazy Horse we were not guaranteed to get songs ending in five minutes or more of howling feedback, as we experienced in Newcastle last year. After sauntering onto the stage and placing a basket of grapes on the drum riser, Young and his Crazy Horse cohorts, aided by Rick Rosas standing in for the recuperating bassist Billy Talbot, launched into a lengthy version of 'Love and Only Love' one of three numbers from the 'Ragged Glory' album.

Once again however, Young showed he is willing to mix things up a bit. In contrast to those heavy rocking numbers, we were also treated to a band version of 'After The Gold Rush'. During a short acoustic interlude we got 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart' and to the delight of the crowd, 'Heart of Gold'. This was followed by what was in my opinion the treat of the night, the rarely performed 'Barstool Blues' from the album 'Zuma'. Even an unreleased 1970's album 'Homegrown', was represented by the song 'Separate Ways'.

When one considers that Young has issued three new albums in the last couple of years and from these only played the title track from 'Psychedelic Pill' making no mention at all of his latest venture, 'A Letter Home', one begins to realise just how perverse he is. 

Returning to play their first encore, they gave us a brand new song 'Who's Gonna Stand Up and Save the Earth?' This was duly followed by the much more familiar 'Down By The River'.

Then the band and backing singers took their bows and tossing a grape into the audience, Young gave us a last wave and the stage emptied to the strains of 'Greensleeves'

Each time I have seen Young play has been a totally different experience yet I have never come away feeling in any way disappointed. Surely this has to be the measure of a true star.
Long may he run!

Finally I think it only fitting that I make mention of the quality of the large screens and particularly of the sound. The organisers have certainly done a great job in those areas.

The complete setlist can be found by following this link.