The artist Neil Young said could outplay him onstage: “He is the best”
The stage show is where every artist proves their worth to their audience. While musicians ultimately play for themselves, there’s an undeniable gratification in harnessing the energy of a crowd, turning them into an instrument of their own. Neil Young, a battle-hardened performer ready for all-out war whenever he took the stage, knew he could hold his own. But even he had to admit that the new school had him beaten in a few areas.
Even for someone who spent most of their career making rootsy rock and roll, though, Young never stopped being entertaining whenever he played live. From his moments sitting on a chair with an acoustic guitar to him pushing and pulling the members of Crazy Horse, Young let most of the music speak for itself while still being one of the most animated men to ever grace the stage.
Take his performance on ‘Rockin’ In the Free World’ from Saturday Night Live, for instance. The song would already get the job done if all he had to worry about was playing the tune, but by getting everyone in the band hyped up, he made every note feel like it needed to be played, to the point where it felt like the guitar could have exploded in his hand at any moment when they were playing.
However, as the 1990s turned a corner, Young found himself in competition with his musical children in some respects. The biggest names in music were now people like Pearl Jam, and now that they had considered Young their musical forefather, his way of doing whatever he wanted live suddenly had a proper outlet. Even by his standards for live performance, nothing could have prepared him for what Beck had to offer when he debuted.
While there are some clear similarities in the way that Young and Beck both came into the mainstream brandishing acoustic guitars, that should be where the comparisons begin and end. The whole point behind his music was to create a musical stew of all his influences, and that normally meant throwing a hip-hop beat onto something, making a funky jam, or making a ballad that could break your heart.
Young may have had his own creative land at that point, but he always wanted the opportunity to work with Beck, saying, “There is a handful of guys I think able to go further than I can, able to be more productive. Beck is really successful in that way. For me, he is the best. He is part of the R&R story. So, as soon as I can get him for the first part of my shows, I jump at the opportunity. In a sense, I think that he has more charisma than I have. With him, taking up the stage seems so natural, and I’m so awkward.”
Then again, it’s hard to even think of how Beck would fit into a Young production. He could certainly sing a track like ‘Heart of Gold’ if he wanted to, but a lot of the best moments of both of their careers were about doing something off the beaten path, so any collaboration would have been something nobody could have predicted, like some strange bluegrass record.
While there might be some hope for them to collaborate in the future, some pieces still might not fit. It could have made for an absolute sonic mess had they collaborated, but since when was anything either of them have made meant to be completely spotless?
