Neil Young 62: Way Down In The Rust Bucket

The return of Crazy Horse for 1990’s Ragged Glory album rode a wave of critical acclaim that spilled over into the subsequent Smell The Horse tour the following winter and spring. While the staging was in line with the big amps and giant mike stands of previous tours, the tone was colored by Operation Desert Storm, and the setlists stayed pretty basic, as captured on the Weld album and video.

It didn’t start out that way. As he had on other occasions, Neil followed up the album sessions by bringing Crazy Horse into a nearby club to whip the tunes into shape. These were smaller affairs than the usual arena shows, with tickets sold quickly and quietly to the lucky few who managed to pounce on time. Being Neil, the shows were filmed and recorded for his own reference; a few songs from other such visits came out officially in the ‘90s, on the Broken Arrow and Year Of The Horse albums.

The two-and-a-half-hour set played on November 13 that year, as captured on Way Down In The Rust Bucket, covered most of Ragged Glory, which had already been out for two months, but also touched on other songs from the previous two decades. Along with the usual Horse staples, like “Cinnamon Girl” and “Like A Hurricane”, the boys plowed through lesser-known nuggets, like “Surfer Joe And Moe The Sleaze” and “Bite The Bullet”. They even played “Danger Bird” for the first time ever in public, and the second-ever live performance of “T-Bone”. The band sounds great; Neil has trouble with some of the high notes on “Days That Used To Be”, and we don’t expect velvet harmonies from the other guys anyway.

The focus throughout Way Down In The Rust Bucket is the music. Very little of the between-song chatter is included, and every track fades to silence after the song is finished, with a minimum of crowd ambience. (The video portion, simultaneously released on DVD, included all the chatter, tuning, and false starts, as well as the night’s performance of “Cowgirl In The Sand”, which apparently had audio issues.)

Of the many projects teased from Neil Young Archives throughout 2020, this was a welcome installment in the growing catalog. Hard to believe, listening over 30 years later, these guys were considered “old” then.

Neil Young With Crazy Horse Way Down In The Rust Bucket (2021)—3½