Neil Young with The Band of Horses Down By The River

Neil Young played an amazing show at Riverbend Music Center with The Band of Horses. The Band of Horses opened the show with all of their hits, then Neil Young took stage. Young's farmer girls started planting pots and throwing corn all over the stage. While this was going on, Neil came out of the dark over to his piano and immediately went into "After the Gold Rush", "Heart of Gold" into "Old Man." He started out with an acoustic set and then started tearing the place to shreds with The Promise of the Real. They played just about every song the crowd wanted to hear. About mid-set he started into a story about the history of the event at Kent State and the song "Ohio" and then played a 17 minute version of the classic masterpiece. The crowd chanted "forgetting Ohio" at the end. He then looked back at the mighty Ohio River and went into a very rocking version of "Down by the River."

Neal made two things abundantly clear, he still has "it" and he really hates Monsanto/GMO's. Most of his new songs are about his protest to Monsanto and GMO's. I was backstage with a friend from the Band of Horses and he said,  "I haven't had too many conversations with Neil that weren't serious and meaningful about something that matters." I had a few minutes of Neil's time and he was very intense and basically was getting his back into his living with his thoughts and actions. He then directed me to all of his petitions of matters of the heart to him, I of course agreed with his causes and signed away. I have two shots going onto NeilYoung(dot)com this week, check out his site and see if he is coming to a venue near you...

Images by Doug Siegel
www.dougsiegelphotography.carbonmade.com