Rust Never Sleeps

I saw this concert film when it was first released in Australia and still have respect for the fact that it wasn't edited to present Neil as a 'star': like a lot of his albums, it's a "warts-and-all" presentation.

Another commentator bemoaned the fact that "Tonight's The Night" wasn't included in the footage. I dunno. Perhaps it was, even as late as then, a too-sensitive subject for Neil and The Horse to explore on stage. Then again, there had to be differences between "Rust Never Sleeps" and "Live Rust".

"Rust" as a 'show' was a concept: a piece of theatre that sometimes didn't work and at other times captured the sheer vitality and looseness which has been a trademark of Neil Young and Crazy Horse.

The 'road-eyes', apart from being an atrocious pun (both linguistically and visually) can be seen as a comment, by Young, about the almost non-presence of roadies in the audiences' perceptions. The visual reversal of size: roadies small/equipment big is, as another pointed-out, an almost surreal juxtaposition. Acoustic Neil, crawling out of his sleeping bag, and later indicating that when he gets big he wants a real guitar, is his trademark self-deprecating humour.

I have only one main criticism about "Rust Never Sleeps" - and that is purely that the cinematic/reproduction quality of the video was so abominably terrible. Still, that's production values for you. I'd probably have "bitched about" technicalities to do with a performance of a Shakespearean play, had I been there in Elizabethan times. Huh, yeah. I'd have been outside, sweeping-up horse-droppings to resell for fuel.

I have been a Neil Young "fan" since 1970. That is probably the first time I heard his music or at least associated his music with him. I was living in the city (SF) with about 12 other folks way up off California St. It was a nice victorian on Lake St. The album (yep - 12" plastic) was Everybody Knows This is Nowhere. I was immediately drawn to the countryish twang of some of the songs (TLE, ENTIK, R&R,RD); I was mesmerized by Down by the River and Cowgirl in the Sand.

I first played the RNS movie while in Japan in 1982. I was on the vinyl CED format. I bought it at a record store above the Yokohama train station. I was awed by the quality and choice of material. Neil must have tapered his interaction with audiences during the mid-late 70's. Early on he was such a blabber mouth - not a bad thing - but on RNS he was "courteous" but focuses on the presentation. Almost all the songs were superbly executed. This contains is my favourite Powderfinger arrangement. The screw-up on Thrasher demonstrates a professional just slyly grinning it off and rewinding a tad to recover nicely without skipping any of the lyrics. I have always wondered how he screwed that part up? "they were...rock formations" - he forgot "lost in". I only wish he had put this version of thrasher on the "live rust" lp/cd.

The roadeyes and woodstock bits were a drag but on the cd version can be effortlessly, immediately bypassed. I am 54 years on and I have a lot of concerts under my belt and many Firday or Saturday nights were at Winterland and the Fillmore West seeing the greats of the day. imagine Led Zeppelin at the Fillmore; bumping into Janis at the Fillmore; There was no sense of star ego then. It was a different thing. Carlos Santana talking to myself and others on the street after a concert. he was walking alone. Those days are gone forever. What the heck happened?

Rust Never Sleeps is superb. The music isn't flawlessly performed but it is real and really, really good. Perhaps some do not know that many Neil Young recordings are essentially live takes - not a bunch of crappy track takes and overdubs to create the sound some record exec wants to sell to an unsuspecting public.

The simplicity of many of the RNS songs are their beauty in disguise. From the gentle acousticals to some of the blistering industrial tunes (Sedan Delivery, Powderfinger, ...) its unlike any video/movie/musical I have ever seen/heard. Neil was at his best. The horse was up for the task.

This is a must-see for anyone who thinks live music sucks!

Rust never sleeps is certainly one of the best live concerts ever and probably the best of it's decade Groundbreaking for it's time and still a classic today I can't tell you how much I LOVE it. The opening with the Hendrix underscore and the Beatles's 'a day in the life' and then Neil stars singing; just him and his guitar at their live acoustic best. It's the perfect mix of electric and acoustic, old and new and set the standard for live shows from then on. And the best part is that it lasts for 2 whole hours nowadays concerts just last 90 mins or so. Before i bought this DVD I already owned a couple of his albums among which the rust never sleeps album but this DVD pursued me to buy even more. I now own almost 20 of his cd's and i bought mu first cd just under a year ago: Harvest. That shows the shear quality of him as an artist.

Yes we do need to see Jawa's setting up the stage its funny. They even have an over-sized tuning fork to help Neil tune up. Also funny is the scientist explaining that if you put on the glasses provided you can see flakes of rust falling off Neil's guitar during the solos. I think the stage announcements and the fact that their isn't a real audience, just recorded noises from Woodstock add to the surreal/fake quality of the film, its Neils little dig at the huge corporate sponsored rock events that were starting to spring up at the time. Obviously the songs are great too, Hey Hey My My namechecking Johnny Rotten at a time when most of his contemporaries where acting like confused old men at the emergence of punk (By the by Young discovered New wavers Devo and Jonathon Richman).

Rust Never Sleeps (1979)

*** (out of 4)

Neil Young and Crazy Horse take the stage at the Cow Palace for this show that took place on October 22nd, 1978. Many Young fans consider this tour to be one of his best and we get many classic tunes including: Sugar Mountain, After the Gold Rush, My My Hey Hey (both versions), The Needle and the Damage Done, Cinnamon Girl, Like a Hurricane and Welfare Mothers. It seems this tour was highly thought of but at the same time this film seems to draw some heat. This was my first time viewing it and my first time seeing any Young performance from this era and I must admit that I really liked it. I agree with some of the negative press that the filming was quite poor as much of the concert doesn't go to film very well as it's dark, grainy and at times the camera doesn't seem to know what it wants to focus on. There's a stage act going on but none of this is captured very well. Having said that, the music is certainly the most important thing here and the performances are terrific. Young does some solo numbers, which are excellent as are the stuff with Crazy Horse. Some of the highlights including a rocking version of Like a Hurricane and a very somber The Needle and the Damage Done. Even some of the lesser known tunes come off extremely well. Young's vocals are very good and the guitar playing is tops as usual. The film kicks off with some Hendrix and Beatles so that's never a bad thing.