Iconic Canadian songwriter Neil Young has spoken about an ‘audience test’ on his new tour film.
Neil Young’s live show can split audiences. Sitting comfortably with his acoustic guitar, the singer can stroll through the hits before suddenly strapping on his Les Paul for twenty minutes of screeching guitar.
New tour documentary ‘Neil Young Trunk Show’ demonstrates both sides of his personality. Amongst the hits is a twenty minute version of ‘No Hidden Path’ featuring plenty of Hendrix inspired guitar playing.
Speaking to the New Yorker, Neil Young labelled the performance in the film as an ‘audience test’.
“That’s the test, the audience test. “How long are these guys gonna play?” It doesn’t matter how long it is, because it’s only convention that dictates how long a song should be. We don’t have to play by those rules.”
“We aren’t competing in that arena. We just play. It goes on for a long time. It’s like jazz, or fusion. I don’t know what the hell it is. It’s what we do, and the older we get the more we do it.”
Continuing, Neil Young revealed that he does not feel the performance shows the band at their best. “It wasn’t an entirely great performance. It was a struggle at times. The struggle to get the beat right on “No Hidden Path” was a long one, and so finally we had to settle for playing it differently. I played it faster than I normally do.”
Neil Young also had a few sobering thoughts on performance in general, including this nugget: “Yeah, but generally we hate the fucking audience. They disturb the whole thing.”
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