"The war is over"

Fifty-three years tonight I attended my first “real” rock concert, Neil Young at Madison Square Garden. I’d been to two Rock and Roll Revival shows but I don’t count them as authentic rock experiences – seeing legendary elders Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and Bo Diddley was exciting, but at that point they were essentially oldies acts.

The logistics around Young’s 1973 tour are amazing in retrospect. Today, major tours tend to occur in the summer or fall when travel is easy. For this tour, Young played 61 shows between the first week of January and the first week of April, with nearly all the January concerts played in cold weather cities. And some strange bookings. Two shows in Alabama – Tuscaloosa and Mobile – maybe because the song Alabama was on his last album, Harvest? Shows in Roanoke, Virginia, and Des Moines, Iowa. Overall, a promoter’s dream and a performer’s nightmare.

Not my ticket

The unannounced opening act that night at the Garden was Linda Ronstadt, her first time opening the tour and, after years of playing clubs like the Bitter End in New York City and the Troubadour in Los Angeles, the largest audience she’d ever faced. “She didn’t really want to do it,” said her manager. “She was scared.”

Throughout the Young shows she often played to indifferent crowds, but the shows served as a crucible of sorts and by September Ronstadt had her first gold album as her career took off (and overtook Neil Young possibly in popularity and certainly record sales).

There was no announcement when Ronstadt came on stage and I don’t recall her introducing herself or her band. Nerves, I guess. What I remember mostly was a lot of people milling around during her set looking for their seats, their friends or someone selling joints. And there were lots of joints. As soon as the lights came down for Young, the smell of marijuana was overwhelming; naïve me, it was my first experience being around it and reminiscent of the smell of chicken grilling outdoors, it only made me hungry.

Young played most of the stuff you'd want to hear, like Cinnamon Girl and Southern Man, but in the 1970s it was a badge of coolness and authenticity and honoring one's muse if artists insisted on spending a good part of their onstage time playing some newer stuff, so part of Young's setlist was dedicated to songs that wouldn't appear on record until Time Fades Away. But he also sang the obligatory Heart of Gold, a #1 hit a year ago, and Old Man so folks left the show happy.

This was also the night when Secretary of State Henry Kissinger reached the Paris Peace Accord, officially ending U.S. participation in the Vietnam War. Someone came onstage and handed Young a note as he announced, “The war was over.” It was rumored that both sides were close to an expected agreement, but to hear the official word from Neil Young is a little cooler – and much more memorable – than getting it from Walter Cronkite.