Song of the Week - Sign of Love by Neil Young

My wife and I went to see Neil Young on his Twisted Road tour at Jones Hall in Houston on Friday night. It was a solo, but not all acoustic show. Bert Jansch, of long ago Pentangle fame was the opening act.The play list:

1. "My, My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)" from 1979's Rust Never Sleeps. He did this with acoustic guitar. It was a good performance although a little tentative to start. His voice sounded fine.

2. "Tell Me Why" from 1970's After The Gold Rush. A great song, also done acoustic.

3. "Helpless" from the 1970 CSNY album Deja Vu. Also acoustic. So far just really old stuff but the crowd was loving it.

4. "You Never Call". This is a new released piece done on the electric guitar. Kind of a playful song and I liked it.

4. "Peaceful Valley". Another new song on electric. Very good, with an ecological theme.

6. "Love and War". Another new song, this time on acoustic. I really liked this one. These three new songs are all available on YouTube from earlier dates in the tour. The quality isn't real great as they were probably filmed by somebody's cell phone.

7. "Down By The River" from 1969's Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. This as a rocking electric version that brought the house down. You may notice that I have this album in my blog banner. This is probably my first favorite Neil Young song.

8. "Hitchhiker", a new song done electric. I didn't care so much for this one.

9. "Ohio". A 1970 single. A classic CSNY song done electric. While this is still a powerful song to me, I wonder what the younger people (while there were a lot of old guys like me, a sizable portion of the audiance was probably not even born when the Kent State Massacre occurred) think of it.

10. "Sign of Love". Also new. Listen for yourself.



11. "Leia". A new song done on an upright piano. A nice little song about a baby delighting her parents.

12. "After the Gold Rush". Another from 1970's After the Gold Rush. He did this on a keyboard which may have been a calliope. Very haunting.

13. "I Believe in You", also from After the Gold Rush. Done on a grand piano.

14. "Rumblin'" Another electrified new song. It was hard to understand the lyrics on this one but the tune was good.

15. "Cortez The Killer", from 1975's Zuma. High energy electric and well done. It was different than other live versions I've heard. He is a master of the electric guitar and really showed it here.

16. "Cinnamon Girl" from Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. Another high powered electric number and another of my early favorites by him.

This was the last number of his regular set. He came back and did a 2-song encore.

17 "Old Man" from 1972's Harvest. He did this on the acoustic guitar. Another song I've always loved. It's ironic hearing him singing this now as, of course, he's pretty much an old man himself now.

18. "Walk With Me". Another electric new song. I would have preferred some I knew for the last song. I didn't like this all that much. I was hoping for "Like a Hurricane".

All in all, I really enjoyed the show. This is the third time I've seen him in concert. The last time was in 1988, an age ago. He has so much material, it must be difficult for him to pick a set. 8 of the songs were brand new, not released. I was pretty happy with 6 of them and hope to hear them on a record soon. Of the 10 old songs, all were prior to 1980. He did nothing from the vast middle of his career.