Concert Review of the Moment: The Marquee, Cork, Ireland Concert Reports: 6/30/08

Photo by Michael Hussey on photo gallery YoughalOnline.com

The Concert Review of the Moment at Neil Young at The Marquee, Cork, Ireland - 6/30/08 from Alan:

I hadn't really been looking forward to the gig to any great extent but felt that it was something I should see. I have over 30 of his albums and for much of my life Neil's were the only songs I listened to - buying the tickets was akin to agreeing to attend the birthday party of an old school friend with whom I had long ago lost contact.

But what a birthday party it turned out to be. He played just the right mix of golden oldies and recent 'hits' and extended some of them into ten-minute guitar solos. These riffs, at times so long as to almost seem an attempt to test our patience, would no doubt have tested my patience if I had been listening to a CD but seeing just how into it the man himself got was worth the ticket price. There were times where I genuinely thought he was in the throes of an epileptic fit. There's no way a 62 year old brain-aneurysm survivor should be writhing about the stage like that, I thought. During one guitar-accompanied reverie I found myself anticipating the following day's newspaper headlines - 'legendary rocker burns out on Cork stage', 'veteran Canadian songsmith hospitalised after epileptic fit during Irish gig' etc. etc.

I wasn't the only one who misread things though. So long did he extend some of his songs that the audience on a number of occasions broke into thunderous applause when they thought he had finally brought numbers like Words to an end. How wrong they were. Seconds after thousands of hands began to clap the guitar exploded back into action...

After Leonard Cohen's three hours on stage in Dublin I was a bit disappointed with Neil's two but my girlfriend pointed out that the exertion involved in 2 hours of leppin' about the place and thumping his guitar would have exhausted a man half his age (I think she was referring to me).

Btw, was it just me or did he seem to get mightily pissed off with the sound people more than once?

More concert reviews of Neil Young at The Marquee, Cork, Ireland - 6/30/08.