Neil Young – Hammersmith Apollo - 17/5/2003

This was the "Greendale" tour. "Greendale" being a proper concept album. In other words, it has a linear narrative, starts strong and then goes flat on side 2 when the story ends before the record does. Weirdly, it worked really well in concert, because Young talked about the creative process and bulked out the narrative. One man, one guitar, one enormous stage. Well, not just one guitar: there were three keyboards across the stage in a Hammond Organ archipelago. So, for the second half we got things like an amazing "After the Goldrush" given a post-apocayptic-pump-organ treatment. Probably my second-favourite Neil Young gig, because it was the most intimate we've seen him, despite being half-way to the back of the balcony.