Neil Young lets it all hang out in latest concert film (photo by Larry Cragg)
NEIL YOUNG TRUNK SHOW (Jonathan Demme, 2009)
Landmark Sunshine
143 East Houston St.
Opens Friday, March 19
212-330-8182
www.trunkshowmovie.com
www.landmarktheatres.com
In April 2005, Neil Young underwent brain surgery for an aneurysm. Four months later, he gathered together friends for two special nights at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium, captured on film by Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme, who has previously helmed such fab music docs as STOP MAKING SENSE and STOREFRONT HITCHCOCK. NEIL YOUNG: HEART OF GOLD was an intimate portrait of man who looked death in the face and survived; the film featured acoustic songs primarily from Young’s beautiful PRAIRIE WIND album. But the Godfather of Grunge wasn’t about to let a little thing like a brain aneurysm stop him from rocking in the free world. As he continued his long-term project of reaching deep into his past for his archival box sets, he released CHROME DREAMS II in October 2007, a sequel to an unreleased 1977 album that was rumored to include such future Young classics as “Pocahontas,” “Like a Hurricane,” “Homegrown,” and “Powderfinger.” For CHROME DREAMS II, Young strapped on the electric guitar and held nothing back, joined by longtime partners in crime Ralph Molina on drums, Rick Rosas on bass, and Ben Keith on guitars and keyboards.
Young took the show on the road, playing small clubs across the country, where each song was announced by a live painting by Eric Johnson. Demme captured two searing performances at the Tower Theater in Pennsylvania, filming them guerrilla-style with eight cameras, mostly handheld, that get right up in Young’s face. While the actual concerts were divided into two separate sets, first solo acoustic, then electric with the band, which also featured backup vocals by wife Pegi Young and Anthony “Sweetpea” Crawford, Demme mixes them up in NEIL YOUNG TRUNK SHOW, an exhilarating music documentary that limits behind-the-scenes patter and instead concentrates on the powerful music. Young has been at this game for nearly fifty years, but he plays with a young man’s abandon in the film, his eyes deep in thought on such gorgeous acoustic gems as “Harvest,” “Ambulance Blues,” “Sad Movies,” and “Cowgirl in the Sand” while really letting loose with extended jams on the new “Spirit Road” and “No Hidden Path” before tearing everything apart on “Like a Hurricane.” The sixty-two-year-old Canadian legend even includes an instrumental from his high school days with the Squires, “The Sultan,” complete with Cary Kemp banging a gong. As with most Young concerts, TRUNK SHOW is not about the greatest hits; to truly enjoy it, just let the music take you away – and make sure the theater has the volume turned up loud. This is the second in a proposed Neil Young / Jonathan Demme trilogy; we can’t wait to see what they come up with next.