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Why do I do
this to myself?
A while back I
wrote of the reunion of The Rutabaga Boogie Band, a Sacramento group that owned
the local rock scene in the 1970s. My wife and I had spent hours dancing to the
band during our college years, a time when life seemed to be just her, me, our
studies, and that weekly night out.
The experience brought back too much of the self-focused 70s hedonism that had
made me uncomfortable even then, though I hadn’t understood why. On the drive
home I resolved to confine future mid-life crises to fretting over my expanding
waist and retreating hairline.
Yet there we
were, less than a year later, at the Sacramento stop of the first concert tour
of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young since 1974. CSNY is a far cry from the
Rutabagas in a lot of ways; formed in 1969 and once one of America’s most
popular bands, its members have, in various combinations, now recorded and
performed in five decades. Still, I had to wonder if this would prove to be
just another bad flashback.
(Memo to my
fellow numbers geeks: I know the new decade and millennium don’t technically
start until 2001. Mellow out.)
My wife and I
have seen Stephen Stills and Neil Young in concert many times, though not for
several years. My own singing voice and guitar style have been compared to
Young’s, which accurately reflects his influence but is not an actual
compliment. As Graham Nash was recently quoted, “Neil’s not into perfect. He’s
into making you feel.” Very kindly put.
How does one
prepare for a visit with the icons of one’s youth, not to mention his first
secular concert in well over a decade? We did buy their new CD, but beyond that
I’ve long outgrown trying to be anything other than what I am or wish to be. I
don’t yearn to be a 40-something hippie wannabe, so wore no tie-dye and skipped
no trips to the barber. To hear the 70s lament “Almost Cut My Hair,” I would
sport whitewalls.
There were
certainly no whitewalls on stage. Nash would look at home at your average
Kiwanas meeting, but the rest of the guys haven’t spent $100 on haircuts between
them since their last tour. Time has been particularly hard on David Crosby, or
more accurately, he has been hard on himself. The drug problems that led to
prison in the 1980s and a 1994 liver transplant are now behind the 59-year-old,
though he still bears a haggard, worn look. He was also the least animated,
moving like he was afraid that new liver might flop out.
Stephen Stills
is looking more like Crosby every day, and I was struck by the coarseness of his
speaking voice. He pulled it together nicely while singing, gracefully dodging
the high notes of old. If he wasn’t having so much fun I might suggest he also
drop the Rockette-style kicks, which looked like they were choreographed by – or
for – the Pillsbury Doughboy.
Graham Nash
broke both legs in a boating accident just weeks before the tour and spent much
of the monster 3-hour show sitting at the piano or on a stool. Nash wrote the
lion’s share of the band’s biggest commercial hits and still drives their
trademark harmonies.
Neil Young is,
well, Neil Young. The quirkiest of the four and the main impediment to earlier
planned reunions, he moves like he hears something else, swaying, stomping, and
swooping to a beat only he can sense. His band mates must surely have learned
to ignore him in order to keep on tempo.
It was a good
time, with the new songs received as enthusiastically as the classics. Neither
reflects where I am today, but this seemed more like a gathering of old friends
than the Rutabaga show. Just a chance to chat and catch up, not to play
make-believe.
In the end, my
mid-life crisis hardly twitched. It turns out that the past can make for a nice
visit after all as long as you don’t feel pressed to live there.
© 1997 – 2002 Brent Morrison
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