Neil Young Journeys Through the Past at Idaho Tour Kick-Off

Last night, Rock Daily thought we hit the jackpot when Bruce Springsteen played "Meeting Across the River" and "Jungleland" at Madison Square Garden, but little did we know that in Boise, Idaho, Neil Young was kicking off his tour with one of the craziest setlists of his entire career. Playing no less than four songs from various unreleased mid-Seventies albums, Young also dug out super rarities "Ambulance Blues," "Campaigner," "Bad Fog of Loneliness" and "A Man Needs a Maid," which he hadn't touched in thirty-one years. Only four songs from his forthcoming Chrome Dreams II were performed. What inspired the nostalgia-adverse Young to reach so far back? Might he be going through his mid-Seventies tapes in preparation for Archives Volume 2 — even though Volume 1 has yet to see the light of day? With this guy you never know. The complete setlist is below.

The first part of the show was performed solo acoustic, the second with a small band containing pedal steel guitarist Ben Keith, bassist Rick Rosas, Crazy Horse drummer Ralph Molina with Anthony Crawford and Young's wife Pegi on background vocals.

10-18-2007, Velma V. Morrison Center For The Performing Arts, Boise, Idaho:
"From Hank To Hendrix"
"Ambulance Blues"
"Sad Movies"
"A Man Needs A Maid"
"No One Seems To Know"
"Harvest"
"Campaigner"
"Journey Through The Past"
"Mellow My Mind"
"Love Art Blues"
"Love Is A Rose"
"Heart Of Gold"
---
"The Loner"
"Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere"
"Dirty Old Man"
"Spirit Road"
"Bad Fog Of Loneliness"
"Winterlong"
"Oh, Lonesome Me"
"The Believer"
"No Hidden Path"
---
"Cinnamon Girl"
"Tonight's The Night"

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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