NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE : RETURN TO GREENDALE

NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE : RETURN TO GREENDALE

Disc One

Falling From Above
Double E
Devil's Sidewalk
Leave The Driving
Carmichael
Bandit

Disc Two

Grandpa's Interview
Bringin' Down Dinner
Sun Green
Be The Rain

Label : Reprise Records

Venue : The Air Canada Center, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Recording Date : September 4, 2003

Release Date : November 6, 2020

Review (Wikipedia) : Return to Greendale is a live album from American-Canadian folk rock musician Neil Young and American rock band Crazy Horse recorded in 2003 while touring to promote the album Greendale. Young announced the Greendale Live album on his website on January 1, 2020 with the intention to release it in the year, alongside Way Down in the Rust Bucket, a 1990 recording of his tour with Crazy Horse supporting Ragged Glory. The album was initially announced for release on June 19 before being delayed until its release on November 6. A concert film edition was screened in San Francisco and via the Movietone section of Neil Young's Archives website. On September 25, Young revealed that the album would be released on compact disc, vinyl LP, and the concert film edition on Blu-ray and DVD with the documentary Inside Greendale.

Review (AllMusic) : Greendale ranks as one of the more elaborate projects Neil Young ever conceived, a concept album inspired by Thornton Wilder's Our Town which was accompanied by a film telling the record's story - the film was then used as a backdrop for a theatrical production featuring Young and Crazy Horse. Nearly 20 years after the album's 2003 release, Young revisited the project through the aptly titled Return to Greendale, a live effort capturing a September 4, 2003 concert held in Toronto just a few weeks after the August appearance of Greendale. Like the album proper, Return to Greendale has an elaborate accompaniment: Alongside the basic concert album there's a box set that contains a Blu-Ray of the full concert, along with a DVD with the documentary Inside Greendale (previously released in a 2004 expansion of the album), not to mention LP and CD incarnations of the concert. As a live album, Return to Greendale is fairly straightforward: Young & Crazy Horse run through the ten songs on Greendale, giving them a ragged, spirited reading. The performances inject some life into the material, but the songs remain something of an elliptical ramble that circle around their point instead of tackling it straight on. There's some ambling charm to Greendale, but Return to Greendale won't convert doubters. Instead, it'll play well to the album's fans, as this sounds like a leaner, muscular version of the studio set.

Review (Bluestown Music) : In 2003 bracht Neil Young het album 'Greendale' uit, een conceptplaat met het verhaal van de familie Green uit het Californische plaatsje Greendale, die in hun dagelijkse leven geconfronteerd worden met de uitwassen van de Amerikaanse maatschappij, zoals geweld, corruptie, ongebreideld kapitalisme en klimaatvervuiling. In tien songs wordt door Young samen met Crazy Horse een verhaal neergezet. Toen het album werd uitgebracht ondernamen Young en Crazy Horse een korte promotietoer door de Verenigde Staten. Het concert van 4 september 2003 werd opgenomen en verschijnt nu, 17 jaar later, als live-album. En in tegenstelling tot andere live-albums van Young en Crazy Horse worden de songs van het studio-album op 'Return To Greendale' één op één nagespeeld. De voor 'Young live' zo kenmerkende uitgesponnen jams ontbreken ditmaal. De als een soort documentaire geschreven songs lenen zich daar ook niet voor. Wat blijft is de fantastische en unieke livesound van Young en Crazy Horse. Vanaf het vijfde nummer, Carmichael, wordt de sound wat ruiger na de eerste vier wat ingetogener songs. En in de twee ijzersterke slotnummers, Sun Green en Be The Rain, horen we Young en Crazy Horse op hun best met die unieke, losse en schijnbaar achteloos geïmproviseerde rommelrock sound.

Review (Guitar.com) : It is, in fairness, a rather niche construct. A live album and concert film devoted to a rock opera concept album about the misfortunes of a fictional family in small-town America, released 17 years after the event. But then Neil Young is famously disinterested in pandering to public opinion. Return To Greendale captures Shakey and Crazy Horse on the 2003 tour to support Young's 25th studio album, Greendale, a 78-minute piece he billed as a "musical novel", and which has already spawned a graphic novel and its own website. Neil Young seems determined to keep returning to the mythical Californian town where, through the vehicle of the Green family, he digs into his core themes of environmentalism, the ills of the Bush administration, anti-war sentiments and the insatiable greed of capitalism. The story's narrative arc covers the accidental shooting of a police offer by young Jed Green, Grandpa Green suffering a heart attack and dying while trying to fend off news reporters, and his granddaughter Sun becoming an eco warrior. Like much of Young's prolific latter-period output, where quality control has been a recurring issue, the original album divided critical opinion.