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News Flash
Thu., Jan 11, 2001
Direct bookmark: http://HyperRust.org/News/?f-YOTH2K1
(updated )

Year Of The Horse 2001 Underway

After a roller-coaster ride of surprise -- anticipation -- disappointment -- hope -- struggle -- and finally, pure bliss, Bay Area fans of Neil Young and Crazy Horse were treated to a blistering performance by The Horse last night. The show marked their first public perfomance since the August 1997 wrap-up of the HORDE tour. The show was also The Horse's first show in a downtown San Francisco venue since they played the now defunct Trocaderro on May 8, 1997, the day of the world premier of the Year Of The Horse film.

The day started with a wildfire-like spread of rumors about shows being scheduled for The Warfield. By mid-morning, shows were actually listed in Ticketmaster as going on-sale at noon. But then rumors of "Neil's sick" began to circulate. Sure enough, when noon came, Ticketmaster's ticket sale never started, and soon after the Warfield shows disappeared from Ticketmaster entirely. Speculation that Neil had been angry at the spread of the news about the shows on the radio or the net and cancelled them began.

A flood of calls to Ticketmaster and The Warfield, as well as rumors from "informed sources", led to speculation that the show WOULD go on, and that ticket sales would actually happen at 4pm. And indeed, Ticketmaster did add the entry back to their database by later in the afternoon. However with a switch: NO internet sales. But thankfully for a lot of Rusties, the ticket limit was raised from two to four. It would turn out that a lot of Rusties who were not able to get to ticket sales locations were able to be accommodated by other helpful Rusties who did make it into line.

A nice touch: Tickets were priced at $20.

As eight oclock approached, through a steady rain the Rusties arrived, met their Rustie buddies and soon found their places among the 2300 inside the Warfield. At 9:15 The Horse took the stage with Neil wearing his Don't Spook The Horse shirt, and immediately launched into Sedan Delivery. They played until about 10:30, took a 45 minute break and then played until 12:30, finishing up with Down By The River. They returned for an encore of Hey Hey My My, and the night of magic came to a close.

A surprise twist: Pegi and Astrid joined the band about half way through the show (but remained very much in the background). Interesting though, seeing them join The Horse.

A few random Rustie comments about the show:

  • The horse is definitely out of the barn! The boys sounded great! Very tight, lots of smiles. Amazing show. It just doesn't get any better than this!!!

  • Don't ever remember seeing Neil and CH so damn happy... They were loving every minute...

  • Performance-wise, it was kind of middle ground between the feedback laden 90 tour and the groove of the 96 tour.

  • No new songs but absolutely superlative versions of everything.

  • During Welfare Mothers Neil was making some pretty funny faces.

  • The only miscue I noticed was Neil messed up the last verse of, you guessed it: Fuckin Up...
Currently Neil Young and Crazy Horse are apparently scheduled to play The Warfield again tonight, and there are rumors of another show on Friday night (possibly at a different venue). There's electricity in the air as the reality sets in: The Horse is out of the stable!

 

 

 

 

 

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