NEIL YOUNG : SOLO TRANS

1. heart of gold
2. old man
3. helpless
4. ohio
5. don't be denies
6. i got a problem
7. mr. soul
8. payola blues
9. get gone
10. don't take your love away
11. do you wanna dance ?

Label : Shakey Pictures

Release Year : 1984

Recording Date : September 18, 1983

Venue : Hara Arena, Dayton, Ohio, USA

NTSC : 4:3

Length : 60 minutes

Review : Solo Trans is a concert film by Neil Young, released in 1984. It was recorded at the Hara Arena in Dayton, Ohio on September 18, 1983 during Young's Solo Trans tour. Originally released on only LaserDisc and VHS, the film has since gone out of print. Young still baffles with Solo Trans. In the early 1980s, Neil Young released records that so baffled his folk-rock fanbase that his record label even sued him for producing "unrepresentative" music. This experimental phase of Young's career, which saw him delving into electronic music on the album "Trans" (1982) and following it up with the straight ahead rockabilly of "Everybody's Rockin'" (1983), is represented in the 1984 concert film "Solo Trans." "Solo Trans" has several bits of concert footage all tied together with bizarre and often poorly produced newscast segments that appear to be parodying the entire medium of television, but are too much like real news and variety shows to pack any real satiric punch. Young strums some folk standbys in the beginning, unleashes his vocoder in the middle and closes the show with a short set of early rock and roll all while fake groupies and makeshift TV personalities invade the frame from time to time. "Solo Trans" was directed by Hal Ashby, the giant of 1970s cinema that gave us "Harold and Maude" ('71), and "Being There" ('79). Sadly, this just shows that the 80s were often hard on those who had artistic success in the 70s. While Young survived his musical mid life crisis to become an elder statesman of rock, Ashby died of cancer in 1988 before he could experience any kind of Altman like comeback in the 1990s.