Neil Young — Tonight’s The Night Live At The Roxy

We really knew the Tonight’s the Night songs so we just played them again, the album, top to bottom, two sets a night for a few days.

As his fans will know Neil Young has been releasing loads of live recordings from the vaults over the last few years. Some of these had previously become quite well known on the bootleg circuit.

One of the most eagerly awaited was a recording from his fabled Tonight’s The Night tour in 1973. Here Young, in the wake of a cathartic songwriting burst following the drug deaths of roadie Bruce Berry and Crazy Horse member Danny Whitten, infamously showcased new songs that no one had heard before — in fact the actual “studio” album Tonight’s The Night, initially deemed too rough around the edges for public consumption, was not released until 1975.

Actually Young had done something similar with his Time Fades Away album which was also a live recording of new songs made the year before. Although made with a different backing band (The Stray Gators who had guested on the much more commercial Harvest) the rough and ready raucous performance on Time Fades Away is very similar to what we hear here. If you are familiar with Harvest think of the electric tracks on that album: Words and Alabama.

The backing band, dubbed the Santa Monica Flyers, did have some overlap with Ben Keith on pedal steel and slide guitar, but otherwise was pretty much the Nils Lofgren version of Crazy Horse (an incarnation that has incidentally been reignited some 45 years later, since 2018).

There are several extra tracks on the “studio” version — Borrowed Tune, Downtown, and Lookout Joe. Walk On, albeit not from Tonight’s The Night, is added as an encore on the Roxy album.

Apparently in response to calls to “play something we know” Young would tell the crowd they’d now play “an old one” and then repeat the track Tonight’s The Night again (sometimes three or four times in the same set!). Here the promised “old one” ironically turns out to be Walk On from the also yet to be released On The Beach album!

My main criticism of the Roxy live release is that, like Young says himself, the band just run through the album pretty much and as such it’s hardly any different from the regular album — also recorded live (albeit in the studio).

Nevertheless there are subtle differences to be enjoyed, and some particular highlights. Speakin’ Out has quite a jazzy groove — the guitar is high in the mix and there is excellent solo work (Nils Lofgren) I wasn’t so aware of on the studio record.

I’ll be watching my TV, and it’ll be watching you.

New Mama is given a very percussive treatment on acoustic guitar with some new piano, but the singing is off kilter.

A slow drawn out version of Tired Eyes is a triumph. Here the languid guitar playing is like the gorgeous lines Young would develop a couple of years later on Zuma.

Please take my advice
Please take my advice

The band charge through a storming version of Tonight’s The Night Part 2, and I love the upbeat and heavy Walk On version.

The album is like meeting an old friend. Slightly changed but very familiar. The set is enthusiastically received by a crowd who, presumably unaware of Young’s new demons sending him towards “the ditch”, were no doubt hoping for something from Harvest (witness the whoops of excitement on being told they were going to hear an old one).

In any case the Roxy tracks remain great songs, faithfully reproduced by a great bar room band familiar with the material and each other, and interspersed with some of Young’s most bizarre and amusing commentaries:

Welcome to Miami Beach, everything’s cheaper than it looks …

… but if you have the original classic album there isn’t a lot of need for this too, and if you don’t have either yet I’d still recommend getting the studio version.

Track listing original album:

Tonight’s the Night
Speakin’ Out
World on a String
Borrowed Tune
Come on Baby Let’s Go Downtown
Mellow My Mind
Roll Another Number (For the Road)
Albuquerque
New Mama
Lookout Joe
Tired Eyes
Tonight’s the Night (Part II)

Track listing Roxy:

Tonight’s the Night
Mellow My Mind
World on a String
Speakin’ Out
Albuquerque
New Mama
Roll Another Number (For the Road)
Tired Eyes
Tonight’s the Night (Part II)
Walk On

[bold titles unique to each album]