Complete “Boulder Colorado” (Screamer-04013)
Macky Auditorium, University Of Colorado, Boulder, CO – January 27th, 1971
On The Way Home, Tell Me Why, Old Man, Journey Through The Past, Cowgirl In The Sand, Heart Of Gold, A Man Needs A Maid, Sugar Mountain, Don’t Let It Bring You Down, Love In Mind, The Needle And The Damage Done, Ohio, See The Sky About To Rain, Dance Dance Dance
Neil Young is one of only a handful of artists who is able to keep an audience captivated and interested in a solo setting. He keeps the entire performance very relaxed and loose, telling stories about the songs and inviting the audience to sing and clap along. This concert offers a great selection from his Buffalo Springfield days (“On The Way Home”) to song from the yet to be released Harvest (“Old Man”).
Young is at his most magnetic in encouraging the audience to sing along to “Sugar Mountain”. “Here comes the chorus…You sing the words with me. Even if you don’t know the words, burp or something. This verse isn’t as good as the first verse. You sing loud to compensate.”
Going into the chorus again, he stops and says, “See I skipped it” to much laughter. “Now if I sang something like that surely you can sing it” to again to much laughter and applause. The entire show goes on like this with great asides and comments from the stage.
Screamer is a new label from Japan who is focusing upon previously unreleased Neil Young and CSN&Y tapes. Subsequent releases include Neil Young and Crazy Horse shows from 1970 and 1976 and even a Rolling Stones release from 1975. Hopefully they’ll continue to release these great tapes. The label claims the tape used on this release is a new source.
It is clear but quite distant from the stage. It is further hampered by excessive noise reduction used producing a metallic sound in the background that is especially noticeable during the quieter moments. It isn’t as bad as some labels (like Electric Magic who have literally ruined some potentially great releases), but it is noticeable. That being said, this is a very nice document from his late 1970 early 1971 Journey Through The Past solo tour.
