With the exception of last year, I have attended every HORDE tour show that has come to Long Island since these shows began. I have also been a Neil Young fan for at least the last 25 years. In general, although this show was probably the best organized it lacked talent! Most of the bands' performances made me wonder who they knew in the business because there is no way anyone could have liked these bands enough to give them recording contracts. The best part of the show was Neil Young (who took the main stage around 11:00PM) and Leftover Salmon (who took the second stage at around 7:00PM and was joined in a jam by Neil Young). Leftover Salmon, who I had never heard before, sounded like a mix of late-sixties San Francisco Rock and Blue Grass. The addition of electric banjo and "Garcia-Like" clean lead-guitar riffs in their performance really caught my attention! I will make a point to check out their CD(s).

The problem with this whole show was that by getting turned on by a talented band like Leftover Salmon at 7:00PM made the almost 4 hour wait to see Neil Young seem even longer due to the parade of talent-less acts inbetween! The major "let-down" of the evening was Beck. Everyone, including Rolling Stone Mag, had made such a big deal about him that I really was looking forward to see him. What I saw was "flash" without "substance" in Beck. He puts all of his effort into a stage performance and no effort into the music. He struck me as a Mick Jagger/David Bowie/James Brown "wanna-be" without even a tiny bit of their talent. When he sang, "I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me," I was hoping that someone in the audience would follow his instructions!

It also was not one of Neil's best performances. He opened with SLIP AWAY, followed by DOWN BY THE RIVER, CRIME IN THE CITY, HANK TO HENDRIX (acoustic), SOUTHERN MAN(acoustic), and then THROW YOUR HATRED DOWN. He then went into BIG TIME but stopped half way into the song and said into the mic, "Hey, if it's not happening...why continue?" I still don't know if that statement was directed toward his playing or toward the audience. He then continued with HEY, HEY, MY, MY. After a few more songs, he left and didn't return for an encore?

Anyway, if you have tickets to any the remaining HORDE shows, you may want to rethink your startegy in how early, or late, you plan on getting there.

-MOTU