Neil Young
Live at Massey Hall 1971

THE REVIEW

I want to clarify one thing right away: don't take the praise in online reviews as the nostalgic ramblings of older, hippie reviewers. I'm over 20 and under 25, I've seen nothing of Music and I find myself turning on the radio and hearing stuff I'd gladly do without.

This is not an album you'll hear on the radio. Not even "Harvest," which catapulted Neil Young, and which today it's trendy to say is out of style, nor other masterpieces like "On the Beach," "Tonight's the Night," up to the much more recent "Sleeps with Angels." It's truly impossible not to be moved listening to this concert and it's impossible not to be carried away by that triumphant audience.

But here words are not needed. All you need to do is listen to these songs conceived for the expression of man as an end in itself. Listen to an idea of music that is now practically inconceivable. Neil Young, like many of his peers, had something to say. Actually something to scream, even with the sweetness of an acoustic guitar.
Okay, Young and his genre might appeal more or less, you can't argue about personal taste. However, for albums like this, as far as I'm concerned, it's worth trying to shake a bit of my generation by shouting: this is what we missed. This is what you now scorn. Deplorable imitations, bastard children, are adored, ignoring and renouncing the fathers.

This live is a piece of history, like the previous "Live at Fillmore East," and like all future live albums of the Archives series. All together they will be The History. With this album, it seems like Young-25-year-old is still there, at Massey, just last Friday, sold-out, spine-chilling, playing for an audience that knew how to listen.

Well, I don't intend to miss it again. I will welcome in this way all the CDs, even if they are thirty, of the colossal autobiographic Archives. It's like having a second chance to follow Young from the beginning of his career.