Find the Cost of Freedom

Okay for me, it was all about David Crosby. Yeah, Neil Young still fashions himself as a rock star. And the unifying theme this evening was anti-war, freedom of speech, etc. and that was supposed to be powerful, and it was in a group cheering/short lived kind of way. But basically, when I go to a CSNY concert at the Hollywood Bowl, I’m only interested in the music, how it sounds.

Though I consider myself a protester, I don’t love protest songs.

But I did love Long Time Gone and Find the Cost of Freedom.

But really, it was all about Crosby. His voice. His cool guitar chords with the intricate picking. His solid stance, no bullshit, just playing music and singing really well. With his Yosemite Sam hairdo and his “I’ve been around, man, I’m just going to do this straight up as best I can,” I was blown away. Almost Cut my Hair. Shit.

When he and Graham Nash did Guinnivere, with only the guitar and the two of them singing, come on, it was frigging relgious. Crosby sings with full command of his voice. Up, plaintive and clear. The guy really is the Poppa Dadddy with the talent.

He was amazing.

But did I say, so was everyone else? The big deal about this concert tonight was really how good these guys still are. All of them. Sure, at times when the set switched to focusing on Stephen Stills or Neil Young, you could just hear the scratch of lawyers pens going over contracts that relegated performance time allotment. But hell, these guys did it pretty smoothly and with great ease and no ego. They took turns backing up the featured guy when he was the lead singer of his song.

Neil Young seemed to be the most preening. But he is a solid lead guitarist and maybe this is what is required to get this leadership thing across. Plus, it takes some good, solid Canadian balls to write a song about impeaching the president for being a liar. When he ended the night with Keep on Rockin’ in a Free World, with no encore, people were truly rocked out, even if we all were over forty.

Stephen Stills is still this blues guy. And he was greatly appreciated. Not my thing, but he was solid as hell and from what I can tell from looking around, he got to the bluesy heart of people in a very direct way.

Graham Nash, well, I mean, he’s amazing filler/sweetness.

Thirty-thousand people on a Monday night in the Hollywood Bowl. It felt like a very important event, what with the Iraq footage and network call letters at the bottom right in a font that looked quite cable TV authentic, the call letters being LWW, “Living With War”.

Exiting was difficult. There were so many people, it was kind of crushing and oddly suggestive of a refugee scenario. We survived.

We are in a redo of the late 1960's---in a stupid mess.

But this time around with this war and this terrible president, there is not the upswing of youth protesting. It’s just old people sitting around complaining and going to a concert on a Monday night for fifty bucks. And then exiting like cows in funnels.

But hell, we’re tired. The kids have to do it. They need to push back from their computers and their Blackberries and save the planet. There needs to be a huge swell. A real one.

It cooled off nicely outside. I was thinking... How great Los Angeles can be. Thinking...What a ridiculously special setting, this Hollywood Bowl. The oaks up on the ridge. The mountains all around.

Knowing...What a fucking amazing day it was when Mamma Cass was swimming in Peter Tork’s pool with these guys in the hills and suggested the formation of this band because she thought they’d do well together.