Last Night: Neil Young Tribute Night at the Sunset

The real Neil, courtesy of Laura Musselman

If I grew up to be a hopeless music geek, I owe it to two men: my dad, who loves rock and roll music, and Neil Young, who is my dad's favorite musician. Neil provided the soundtrack to much of my childhood. I have vivid memories of driving around the most remote parts of Nevada with my dad, blasting Harvest. And I don't think I'll ever quite forgive the bastard for not bringing me along when he went to see the CSNY reunion tour in California a few years back.  Also, there was no way I could even afford nosebleed seats to see Neil when he was here a few months ago. So last night was the next best thing, and kudos to Nadamucho for planning it, because the place was pretty damn packed.  Unfortunately, I missed the first few acts-- including Herman Jolly, which I was really looking forward to-- but there was a lot of great stuff I DID see, and here are a few (but certainly not all of) the highlights:

• Hazelwood Motel's drummer, Patrick Smail, can SHRED.  Who knew? Dude did an absolutely kickass rendition of "Fuckin Up" that seriously blew me and the rest of the crowd away, while Ed and Megan took up his sword and hung out behind the drums.
  
• Spanish for 100 played "Helpless," which was not on the roster and which, as Matt Ashworth just had to point out, is a CSNY song, but who cares?  It's an amazing song, one of my favorites, and everyone in the crowd sang along. If I was in a band playing a Neil Young cover night, this song would be part of my set list.
• Mike Toschi getting onstage in costume with At the Spine and killing "Ohio."

There were, however, a couple bummers:

• I missed what was apparently a very nice partnership between Herman Jolly and Megan Pickerel on "The Needle And The Damage Done." Lame.
• I was kinda hoping Megan Pickerel would cover the vocals on "Harvest Moon." That would've been kickass. Her voice would lend itself well to that, I think.
• Nobody did "Cinnamon Girl."