Forever Young

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Shot over two nights at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium, the film superbly captures the world premiere concerts of Young’s Prairie Wind album.

Young is accompanied on stage by country star Emmylou Harris, his wife Pegi, bandleader/steel guitarist Ben Keith, and many longtime musical friends and collaborators.

As he was preparing to record one of the songs from Prairie Wind, Young was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm. He went on to record eight songs for the album before undergoing surgery and two after, as he recovered. Around the same time he also lost his father, who the film is dedicated to, and the mother of his first child.

As a result, Prairie Wind sees Young reflecting on his life, his accomplishments, his family and friends. It is a personal document of a man achingly aware of his mortality and the film embodies Young in this mood; he becomes choked up talking about his father between songs and has a tear in his eye while singing When God made me.

Those unaquainted with Young’s music are unlikely to be captivated by the film. However, it is a masterful depiction of a live performance, and really is the next best thing to being there. It certainly lives up to the title of being a concert film but does not go beyond that, apart from about five minutes of interview footage with Young and some of his bandmates at the beginning.

The film is shot in such a way that makes you feel like you are part of the audience -- I found myself going to clap at the end of every song. Interestingly though, there was not a single shot of the crowd and a couple of times the footage of the band did not actually sync up with the music. Perhaps it would have been nice to see the concert broken up with some old footage, interviews, or documentary sections.

There were highlights towards the end of the film, when Young performed some of his classics, including Heart of Gold, Old Man, and The Needle and the Damage Done.

Neil Young: Heart of Gold takes a penetrating look at a musical legend. Young is captured in concert during a pivotal point in his career. It is a textbook example of this genre and fans of Young will undoubtedly see it again and again. The Melbourne premiere was an occasion suitably marked by a fitting tribute from musicians Tony Byrne and Simon Dodd.

Before the premiere of the film, fans both old and young (no pun intended), were treated to a live interpretation of some of the legend’s classic songs, as performed by Byrne and Dodd. Risky as it was playing Neil Youg covers to die-hard fans, their performance was well-received.

The duo skilfully strummed and sang their way through such hits as Heart of Gold, Harvest Moon, Old Man, and other anthems like My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue).

Byrne's solid baritone voice was not the obvious choice for an impersonation of Young’s characteristically high-pitched, lofty sound. However, this did not detract from the quality of the performance. The intention was not so much to imitate Young as to interpret his music and pay tribute to the man.

“I’ve always admired his music…but I mean, I’m a baritone, so I’ve never found [it] particularly easy to sing,” Byrne remarked, as he reflected on how he had previously shied away from performing Young’s songs.

Simon Dodd's higher-pitched, almost wavery harmonies were reminiscent of Young’s style, and was a welcome compliment to Byrne, as was his guitar work. Dodd brought further authenticity to the duo’s renditions with the occasional splashing of harmonica.

Byrne lead on most tunes, while Dodd took the reigns for one or two numbers. The pair played tag-team on the occasional verse and swapped a line here and there, slipping up just once when Byrne sang the wrong line in Heart of Gold. The only other blunder was when a lyric did not sync up during a harmony between the two musicians. this would have gone unnoticed were it not for the fact that virtually every one of these songs is so familiar. I later found out that the pair was stressed out after running late for the gig and had never actually performed the songs together before!

Ending their set with a suitably rowdy version of Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World, they left the stage to ample applause and the drawing of the cinema curtains.

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Into the lion's den

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SD: Yeah, I’d say that probably the one that got me into Neil Young was “Rust Never Sleeps”, yeah. That starts off acoustic and sort of ends electric, so it gives you both perspectives of his music. Yeah, that was the first time I’d really heard that sort of stripped down acoustic set thing and the songs just shone through, really. That was the one that got me hooked, probably about 10 years ago or something like that but yeah, I don’t have all of his albums.

TB: “Old Man” would be my favourite song and that’s “Harvest”.

SG: So is there anything in particular about his music that draws you to it? Is it his lyrics, his guitar playing, or anything in particular?

TB: For me, it’s his simplicity and his honesty in his lyrics. Basically, his words; they’re poetic but they sort of tumble out in a really natural way.

SD: Yeah, I mean he seems less contrived than say, Bob Dylan, in many ways, you know? I mean, not that Bob Dylan’s not great, he is. But just looking at that documentary, it seemed Neil Young had a more honest approach and he was very much more upfront. Whereas the Dylan documentary, that Martin Scorcese one, it’s all clouded in a sort of, veil of mystery over, you know, is he a bastard or is he a…

SG: Nice guy?

SD:…a nice guy, you know? No one really knows.

TB: Yeah.

SD: So, yeah, there’s that sort of thing behind it, which I quite like, really. But Neil Young is a bit more humble.
More…

TB: Well, he’s sort of a gentle man and really genuine …and he’s still gets his point across. You know, he still makes a raucous and if he’s got any sort of political agenda, he’ll bring it out in his music but it’s not in a…it’s hard hitting but not in a nasty way, I suppose. I think his guitar work is fantastic but I think it’s basically just an accompaniment to his melodies and great work.

SG: So why do you think he’s had such longevity in his career?

TB: Well, he might say luck. That might have to be part of it, as he said in his movie.

SD: Well, it’s quite a tricky question. I suppose, you know, he’s had some supposedly duffer albums, you know, he’s been quite experimental, at times.

SG: With the eighties stuff.

SD: Yeah, that’s right. The sort of eighties stuff…well, I mean essentially he still writes a great song, you know? He’s continued to write great songs through his career.

TB: That’s it…and a great song will transcend fads and fashions and passing things. I mean, you can see that in some of those artists who’ve been around for thirty-something or more years. There’s sort of like, not a new-found confidence but a really forced self-confidence because they’ve ridden through so much, they’ve seen so many different styles of music come and go and they’ve still got a long standing audience and they keep attracting new people all the time as well…good songs. It’s as simple as that. Simple, good songs.

SG: So, would you say there’d be an equivalent to Neil Young or maybe a successor in today’s music scene and if so, who do you think could fill that role?

SD: I don’t know, you’re probably looking at your sort of David Grays or…I’m trying to think of someone else who would be…basically he’s a singer-songwriter so you’ve got to look at sort of, contemporary singer-songwriters. I don’t know, can anyone name any singer-songwriters other than David Gray? I can’t at the minute, strangely.

TB: Well, I mean, it’s a genre that Neil Young’s got to be given credit for spawning a great number of singer-songwriters. And partially from that simple guitar style that he has.

SD: Well that’s right, it makes it very accessible to people. I think that’s the attraction of this sort of, alt-country movement, which has seen Neil Young, and Johnny Cash and you know, those people, Dylan become cool people to name check, which in the eighties or even early nineties, you know, they weren’t fashionable really. So yeah, he’s sort of come full circle, really.

SG: So my last question is, what made you guys want to do this tonight, given that there’d be quite a lot of die-hard fans?

SD: Well, just because of pure respect for Neil Young, you know? I mean it’s great doing those songs there because it’s probably the biggest audience – certainly the biggest seated audience – I’ve played to in a long while. You know, captive audience. It was great to hear the applause of a good crowd. It’s like a proper gig and, you know, you’re preaching to the converted. So, we like Neil Young, you know, we play the songs. They’re all there.

TB: And I saw it as a bit of a challenge really, because if I’m honest, I’ve always actually shied away from performing Neil’s music because it’s not necessarily…

SD:…I reckon you’ll be slipping a couple in your set now, probably?

TB: Yeah, I’ll be doing my low, sort of Johnny Cash-ish reinterpretations. Then when we were asked to do it and I asked Simon to come along and help me because I know he’s a great talent and he’s got a harmonica. (Laughs) So it was good, we really enjoyed it. It was almost like throwing ourselves…

SD:…to the lions.

TB: To the lions a little bit. Because, collectively we’ve got, you know, years and years and years of experience but it’s a whole new thing to me doing Neil Young.

SD: A specialist gig.

TB: Specialist gig, and it was a challenge and I think we rose to it and we did our best.

SD: We did.

SG: Yeah it came across well.

TB: Well, good. Glad to hear it.

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