Live Review: Neil Young

Restricting a rare Scottish visit by Neil Young to one night at Edinburgh's beautiful old Playhouse theatre was inevitably going to lead to a mad scramble for tickets. And that proved to be the case with many disappointed fans and seats selling for ridiculous prices on eBay.

As part of his European tour, and to support his excellent new album Chrome Dreams 2 , the show is a family affair with Young's wife, Pegi, not only singing backing vocals but also delivering her own dreamy new country sounds as the support act.

The main performance is of epic length and divided into two portions – firstly, an intimate solo acoustic set where Young draws heavily on songs from one of his classic eras, the early 70s Harvest and After the Goldrush period, and even incorporates some interesting unreleased material from around the same time.

Seemingly oblivious to the good natured heckling from the exuberant crowd—but less so to the spotlight that he mimes is blinding him—Young casually shuffles around the stage selecting from various guitars, keyboards and a banjo for each song. In the fifth decade of a prolific career, he now has a vast treasure trove of material to draw on such as the lesser known and haunting "Ambulance Blues," one of the evening's acoustic highlights.

As a quirky backdrop on the stage, an artist paints canvasses throughout the show—the images later used to represent and introduce songs in the second set.

After changing from a crisp white suit into a dark, paint splattered one, Young is reunited with some long term musical collaborators for an awesome electric performance. Extended jams around classics like "Down by the River," and "No Hidden Path" (a new epic with a deep trance-like riff) allow Young to unleash the full ragged glory of "Old Black"—the vintage Les Paul that's been with him for almost 40 years. It's played through an old 50s Fender amp to produce its distinctive otherworldly sound, and on songs like "Hey Hey My My" the thunderous, feedback-driven assault seems to shake the very foundations of the old Playhouse. The "better to burn out than to fade away" lyric from that song takes on added meaning.

An incendiary show, the great man's talent undimmed.