Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young: July 6, 2006, Philadelphia Pennsylvania

1st Set
Flags Of Freedom (Young) Wooden Ships (Crosby/Stills/Kantner) Woodstock (Mitchell) Long Time Gone (Crosby) Military Madness (Nash) Wounded World (Stills) After The Garden (Young) Living With War (Young) The Restless Consumer (Young) Shock And Awe (Young) They Want It All (Crosby) Feed The People (Stills) Immigration Man (Nash) Families (Young)

Intermission

2nd Set
Helplessly Hoping (Stills) Our House (Nash) Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Young) Milky Way Tonight (Nash) Guinnivere (Crosby) Carry Me (Crosby) Treetop Flyer (Stills) Roger & Out (Young) Southbound Train (Nash) Ole Man Trouble (Jones) Teach Your Children (Nash) Southern Cross (Stills) Find The Cost Of Freedom (Stills)

Interlude: "The Star Spangled Banner" (perf. by J. Hendrix) the "raising of the Rust Never Sleeps microphone" by Larry Cragg

Let's Impeach The President (Young) For What It's Worth (Stills) Chicago (Nash) Ohio (Young) What Are Their Names? (Crosby) Looking For A Leader (Young) Deja Vu (Crosby)

Encore
Love The One You're With (Stills)

3am Friday July 7, 2006

I just got back from seeing Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young at the premiere show of their summer tour, in Camden New Jersey, and I want to write down a few impressions before I go to sleep. This was an awesome show, and has immediately easily jumped into my top ten favorite live concert experiences. The more I think about it the more I think it might even be top five. It was that good…wherever you are, the first thing you need to do when you finish reading this is to go to http://www.csny.com/ and find out when they are playing nearest you and buy tickets if you aren’t already planning on going.

Tonight’s concert was hot on the heels of an announcement today that Farm Aid 2006 is being held at the same venue tonight’s show was at. Neil Young held a public press conference ten minutes from my job today to make the announcement, but I didn’t hear about it until an hour after it was over. I was pissed I missed a chance to go down there and maybe shake his hand or just stare dumbly at him from pretty close. That is good news though, in mid-late September I’ll get to see Neil and probably the whole lineup of CSNY again at Farm Aid, held practically in my back yard right across the river from Philly.

The show tonight was totally intense. CSNY played most if not all of Neil Young’s new album, “Living With War.” This recent release is extremely political, I believe every song on it is a protest song of some kind. CSNY of course was one of the foremost providers of good old fashioned protest music going all the way back to 1969, so it was certainly appropriate to have them backing Neil on some of his most scathing, bitter, and angry songs ever written. They played a couple of the classic protest songs too, including Ohio and Chicago, though during Chicago they substituted George Bush for Mayor Daley once.

The most moving moment came when the four put down their instruments and sang Find the Cost of Freedom, and on the screen behind them they scrolled thousands of pictures of American soldiers that have died during the Iraqi War, and all through the song a counter ticked away the number of the dead. They continued singing the song, repeating the last verse for much longer than they ever did before as the counter on the giant screen behind them ticked the numbers off higher and higher.

The best moment for me was when Neil Young sat down at the piano, and played Only Love Can Break Your Heart with backing vocals by David Crosby and Graham Nash. It was an amazing, beautiful moment.

Of the four, the performer that probably stepped up the most after Neil was Graham Nash. He played a lot of his classic, seldom heard tunes that were really, really great to hear. Highlights were Military Madness, Immigration Man, and Southbound Train. Other great moments were Southern Cross, Helplessly Hoping, Treetop Flyer, Déjà vu, Guinnevere, Carry Me, Woodstock, Wooden Ships, oh man so many great great songs. So many iconic moments, songs that haven’t been played together with all four performers since as far back as 1974-1975. What a show…don’t miss it if you can help it.