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Part III
My ghost came back from holidays; I can finally deliver the last opus of this Germanic epic to you. (Some photos can be seen.)
Dream and daydream on July 22, 2001:
I run in this narrow and long alley that leads me to the stage. What's going on? Larry Cragg checks up the instruments. Piano cries its joy, then, it’s the organ turn. Then, Larry grasps Old Black. I shout to him: "Like A Hurricane!" He gets a heavy welding sound from it. I ask him for another one. "One more!" No encore. I run in this narrow and long alley that leads me to the stage. What's going on? Did Larry Cragg come back? Drums are active. Each element vibrates under the blows given by... Ralph Molina! The "Listen or thy tongue will keep the deaf" slogan, which is written at the bottom of the drawing on the large drum, still shelves. Listen your tongue will keep the deaf person. I listen and for the moment I still respect the deaf person. It seems to me it’s technique, not music. It seems to me Ralph plays as a meticulous technician during half an hour. "It seems to me" because drums are bare here. Pegi, wearing black clothes, appears in the technical place on the left. I wave my hand to her in greeting to break her timidity. She returns it to me with a large smile while she stares at my tee-shirt. Her eyes sparkle because she’s surprised at reading on my chest: "San Diego - California - Americas Finest City". Billy Talbot comes on stage. Will he grasp his guitar? No, he came wasting time. Near Billy, there’s Poncho talking with Larry. Then Neil joins in the discussion. He isn’t really in a good mood.
The stress about the last tunings and the small professional worries make the chap sick. Keep cool man, yeah! Sauntering on stage, Pegi eases the strained atmosphere. She takes photos of moments of life. Hey Larry. Click. Billy, Poncho. Clack. Hey, the guy with the original tee-shirt. Click. No, it isn’t me, but my neighbour. He drew a motif about "2000 MIH Tour" (Music In Head). It’s insane the time that we spend taking photos, to collect the moment to become memories. I also remember that... But, didn't I create myself these memories unconsciously or... consciously...? Now the instruments doze under their protection rug. Is this dream real? Is everything the fruit of my imagination? I haven’t the time to answer you. Now Neil and his associates come from the bottom on the left. - Don’t you think there are here too many precisions for the imagination? – After all, that means nothing. I continue... Neil waves his hand to the audience (or to the movie camera?), grasps his guitar. And the show goes on. It’s approximately 9.20 PM and the technicians will come back on stage at 00.02 AM. So we have 2h40 in private conversation with the Loner. Yeah! I call out to Poncho in order to make him joyful!
With the first chords under a red light, I feel that Neil doesn’t need to take his marks or to warm up. He keeps times for the distortion in his very worked guitar playing. What a wonderful Man! (Photo 1.) The show is POWERFUL. The sound is EXCELLENT. Crazy Horse is unbridled. As soon as he comes on stage, he’s a top level artist (not really fresh, it’s natural, this tour comes at the end). It isn’t the same Crazy Horse as I saw in Paris. These two shows are complementary to determine its musical identity. Lörrach is less experimental than Paris, but the songs playing are better. "I've been waiting for you and you've been coming to me". Fortunately the dream exists and thanks to it because thus I could meet you. Good monkeys, having watched the "Weld" video, have been mingled with the very quiet crowd. I regret the Paris audience. I regret the Sylver& and Ray Moon (two French female rusties) presences in the audience (still unknown to myself)! I wrote on the French RustList: "Crazy Horse started quickly - the show is recorded and thus the band "didn’t almost need" the audience." Making my little game a laughing stock, Elwood answers me: "In any case I understood one thing, Crazy Horse doesn’t need any audience... so do you need Crazy Horse? Let's got the blues... §!!!!!!! !!!!!! !!!!!! ;!!§§§§§ §§§ §§§§§§ §§". Neil notices me with "Love & Only Love". One guy with a lugubrious voice shouts louder than music! I give him shivers. His first shivers. My tired body holds out, so I’m still able to dance. Is there in "Piece Of Crap" that Billy stops to face Ralph? It doesn't matter. The audience becomes a little bit wild shouting with me "Piece Of Crap". That’s strange: I haven’t get any furious "Piece Of Crap" crying into the finale. (Photo 2.) Larry Cragg sits down at the piano. But the piano is dumb, however it has been checked up in the afternoon! Oh! Larry is annoyed and angrily strikes his fists against his thighs pounding the "Going Home" rhythm. One technician comes in. Now it’s OK and... the rotten luck sticks to his skin! I don’t know how the water bottle, which is on the piano, is overturned on the keyboard. Hell! Larry stays sitting, he’s annoyed and angrily strikes his fists against his thighs pounding the rhythm like "battle drums were pounding". He looks like a lone warrior on the hill. He feels a little bit as a totem. Here, the Indian totem (I didn’t see it lighting as in Paris) is less figurehead than GoGoGirls! The last-mentioned are useful in the 2000 MIH (Music In Head) Tour, but it isn’t really true here. :( It isn’t in this manner that the GGG will bring us in the sirens island with their singing. Lastly, Pegi finds an occupation worthy of interest: she gives rhythm to the audience clapping her hands because I often noticed in the shows that the clapping isn’t always in unison. Here, the audience proves me right (alas). This pictogram: §( :-)) doesn’t correspond to what I see §( :-)). No smile, any nice waves, very retiring. Ray Moon, if you saw another §( :-)) in Vienna, you’re lucky. The details of her dress? Pegi, red low-necked summer dress. §( :-)), a large flower on her breast, horrible tight-fitting trousers, and it seems a cracker has been explodes into her hair. Just like Novostar in the early set of the Crazy Horse night, Neil takes his old guitar and gives acoustic sound to us (Did Hendrix already play with acoustic guitar? – Note in 2005: I’ve seen Jimi did it since I wrote that.) Under blue moon, in the middle of a meadow with buffaloes, long may he runs. Neil is getting ready, I have a feeling of "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" driving me to big despair. His version with piano or acoustic guitar is much better than with electric guitar. "He hides his head inside a dream. (Photo 3.) Someone should call him and see if he can come out." I’m shouting "Trans Am" to him. (I face a mike audience and I don’t hold back! I surely spoiled some tape!) Then I notice a reaction on the Neil face, (Photo 4), an idea, an impression or a memory crossed his mind. New shiver? And Neil comes back in his dream (Photo 3) starting "Only Love Can Break Your Heart", and, he leaves me alone in the nasty wind that was blowing through the gates of Eden Park. An electric breeze brings me back to the superb light of love. (Photo
5.) It’s far beautiful than it was in Paris. It’s far better than it was in the sky and stars of Going Home. The somebody saying there’s a place on high where angels tear their wings to pieces, it is I. And it isn’t because they hear the murmur of "Gateway Of Love" and they can find, just like me, the song being average, being played too lifeless, no, it’s because angels envy us, human beings who have desires and dreams. Angels never dream and haven’t any desire. It’s enough to become furious. But Neil understands them and plays "Hey Hey, My My". What a rage! (Photo 6.) Johnny is rotten with that (laughter without sound - I’m a pro). Crazy Horse gives a belting to the rust. In the action Poncho forgets to make mimicry with the public, remember it but sees that the audience makes them and continues playing his mind at ease. Neil sings us "My My, Hey Hey" in the last verse. Then Neil comes back to the mike and wants to continue to sing but he realizes that he finished the verse and thus the song and that he haven’t good reason to come back to the mike and bursts out laughing (without a sound - he’s a pro). Ralph gives the deathblow and the song is finished. No, Neil prolongs it by distortion during a good minute! During this time, the organ arrives. And how! Silence had well to be filled. It's a blessing. The dove doesn’t come from the sky as in Paris but it comes on castors. Poncho is ready and starts, giving the signal for the introduction about... "Like A Hurricane".
No break between these two songs. That’s really fantastic. My dream is that Neil plays his show with broad introductions mixed with broad finales, the whole decorated with some lyrics - an "Arc" sequel - but being not a rush job from studio. Live Music!!!!!!!!! Perhaps will he do that here? I’m always in my dream, ain’t I? But I don’t control very well the dream mechanism yet and "Like A Hurricane" seems short to myself. Neil goes rather quickly into feed back, then returns to normality, then goes into the feed back again. He breaks his strings, plays with the last remaining string and puts his Old Black down on the floor and kneels to find some sounds. Suddenly Neil leaves his instrument and is going to inspect the Poncho work over his shoulder, and goes facing Billy to watch him working. This role, which Neil acts, doesn’t suit his own image, and this attitude as an unpleasant expert displeases me. But it’s just a dream and I’m just a dreamer. I make a smile thinking about the Novostar guitarist who breaks one string from the outset, but unlike to Neil, isn’t happy and wants to change his guitar being perhaps in its case. One guitarist is missing in this Belgian band in order to give the counterpoint. Novostar, I have the feeling I’ve seen this band before. I’m not able to remember that. On TV? On stage? Or just ten minutes ago in my dream? I leave my thought there because Crazy Horse comes back on stage! And with "Fuckin' Up"! Super! Poncho shouts youyouyouyou. I answer him. The sound is energetic. Poncho shouts his "Fuckin' Uuuuuuuuuup". Tonight, my heart is made of steel and I beat him without problem but there's no merit in that because compared to Paris, he divided his shout by two. No blue finale as in Paris. Then, I shout at him youyouyouyou while I’m waiting for the next song! And... must I announce that? It’s the song that Neil dedicates to the great hunter of moonlight who is Elwood. And how! You’re lucky, Elwood! About this one, I’m on the same territory. But don’t go away, Elwood! Await the last encore. It will be perhaps for you...
Here they are on stage again. Some requests for songs come from the audience. "Rockin’ In The Free World" has the advantage and also "Powderfinger", we can also hear "Farmer John". The guy who is in front of me says to me: "You can ask all tracks. Why not "I' m A Child"?". I always remain silent and, when the audience is quiet and that nothing comes to disturb silence until the next notes, I shout "Down By The River"! AND THREE SECONDS LATER - one, two, three - Neil starts directly... "Down By The River". Ah! Ah! Incredible!!! I can't get over it! I ask and Neil plays! I know he was thinking of playing it before (really?) but the effect is impressive. The guy being in front of me is dumbfounded like everybody noticing this event. Now I’m in the heart of the dream and my memory has dark parts like being in periphery. Neil tirelessly repeats "Be on my side" until we react replying at his words: "I'll be on your side".
(Photo 7.) During all this time, Neil waited until we answer him. Ha! Ha! Ha! I am useless! Ha! Ha! Ha! It's not a laughing matter! Ha! Ha! Ha! I’m not quite within my rights that Neil will play another song. Then I take advantage of the moment to shout §( :-)), but it’s covered by loud applause. Not any song? Rather! "Powderfinger". The audience sings with Neil. I like lyrics, less the musical arrangement, and I can’t explain that. I always feel that about this song (except in country music). But I like the following one but I quickly weary of this music now. Here is "Rockin' In The Free World". Neil heard the German audience previously and must play it. A short while before, Poncho is called by the audience to play "Rockin' In The Free World". He uses signs to communicate with us to say that 1) He doesn’t know what song will be played very shortly; 2) He isn’t himself who choose songs that will be played. Therefore he’s merry to satisfy the audience. I have slept in my shoes since the morning that was my arrival in Lörrach. Red, white, blue. The three guys gather and play wild rock'n'roll until exhaustion (three? And how! The fourth doesn’t move from his drums). Terrific! They look at each other, have fun: who will collapse the first? (Photo 8.) I leave them KO and I wave my hand to Pegi, there's no point in relying on §( :-)) tonight. Pegi gives me back the sign with a broad smile while she remembers our meeting in this afternoon. Poncho thinks the show is finished and he is pleasantly surprised to see Neil, who had slightly forsaken his guitar, to take it again! Let's get the show on the road again for "Roll Another Number"! Fantastic! The last verse about Woodstock makes Neil and his band laugh. (Photo
9.) He doesn’t want to do Woodstock again but comes back with Buffalo Springfield. Ah! It’s better to stick to memories than nostalgia. It’s the final reverence. The GGG are also invited. Crazy Horse Deluxe looks at (observes) with an unspecified feeling that I can define, the audience (who undoubtedly paid anything) perched in their hotels few meters opposite the stage, fixed at their windows lit by the street lamps. Then Crazy Horse is swallowed by backstage. Under a small music at the close, the crowd disperses, every soul is overjoyed to have lived this show. Neil knew well how to create one musical space and to give free rein to his universe in it. Thank you Neil to have allowed me to ride on your property. You haven't said a single word to me if I don’t count when you repeat me tirelessly "Be on my side". And it’s at this time I choose to become the disrespectful deaf. But are we always oneself in the dream? Because it was a dream! No, it isn’t?... Didn't I imagine all that?... Or, everything is as real as Paris, Montreux or Vienna? I won’t really be able to say that.
The end (tear)
Denis Between The Rusty Words (08-23-2001)
 © IDDN 2005
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