Comment of the Moment: Pegi Young Concert Report

Pegi and Neil after the show in Big Sur
photo by Jon Iverson

So who would have guessed that a report on Pegi Young's first solo performance would generate more comments than any post in recent memory? Apparently, there is at least one person who can not abide by her music and her husband's support. It is hard to believe that such opinion's come from a Neil fan.

On a happier note, here's the Comment of the Moment on the Pegi Young Concert Report from RDR responding to some of the negativity:

"Neil washed up? hahahah. Yeah, you should've seen him playing the electric sitar last night, you could see ol' Neil's still got a lotta fight left in him, he really got into that thing. He only played on 3 songs at the very end, and only 1 with the electric sitar, the other 2 were with some strange unplugged acoustic where he was just kind of support sound, but wow, the electric sitar song was out of this world. You could see him messing with the knobs and trying to tune around with it between riffs, it was pretty cool. And not till he got on there with that thing did the band really get rockin, I mean it was actually a great song, Pegi was singing well, Ben was all over the pedal steel, and Rick Rosas and the new guy on guitar were really feeling the rhythm. If you're headed to the show at the Little Fox Theater, you're in for a treat when Neil comes on for that song.

The rest of the songs were fairly good, I will admit there were a few annoying ones, but I mean some of the ones she wrote were well done, and with the backing band she's got they sounded good overall. I'm talking about the show at the Attic in Santa Cruz by the way. They played a set of 7-9 songs, or something like that, and then "finished" and 30 seconds later they came back with Neil "look, we found our sitar player", and Neil, not speaking a word, sat down and picked up the sitar, he didn't even crack a smile till the second song when Pegi would look at him occasionally.

The third song Neil assisted on had a few duet parts, and Neil's voice still sounds the same as it has for the past 3 years, a little battered, but still full of that trademark tenor and softness. As they finished up to uproarious applause (they do not stick around for bows or encores), they quickly went out the back and the building emptied out.

Most of what I heard around me was surprise, "wow, she was pretty good" and "didn't expect it to be that good". I tend to agree, while I did buy my tickets when they went on sale, before it was Pegi Young AND her band on a mini tour, I was of course elated to know Neil would be there. However, on her own, Pegi and the band could've held up the show to a fairly high standard, Neil's presence on the 3 "encore" songs were obviously a treat, but one which was not needed in order to get the show to review well.

I'd give the show 4 stars out of 5, if only because it was short (less than an hour of material, but she only does have one album). Pegi was a little stage shy, but she quickly warmed up to the extremely receptive audience, who whistled and cheered her on between every song amid a din of applauding hands.

It was Pegi's night, and I agree fully with Neil's appearance only at the end of the show, she pleased the audience with her own talent, Neil appeared only on the 3 songs where he could be clearly heard on the album.

Bravo Pegi."