The shows Graham Nash called the ideal way to perform
Anyone who’s been in the game as long as Graham Nash will have preferences when they play. Whether having specific accommodations or the proper setlist, Nash always noted being in the right environment whenever he played his songs. Then again, some shows are always better than others.
Whenever a band was cutting its teeth, most of them would have been happy with any place that had a platform, and The Hollies were no different. Since Nash was coming up in the same corners of England where The Beatles had been cutting their teeth in the early days, he knew the pressure that came with putting on a great show, but he was more than happy to hear people singing along whenever they tore into one of their classics.
But even if the crowd loved it, there was something missing. The Hollies were quickly turning into a machine, and Nash didn’t want to spend the rest of his life being told what to sing or having his songs rejected because they didn’t sound like hits. He was an artist and wanted the freedom to make whatever he wanted, and when Crosby, Stills, and Nash came together, he finally had a musical canopy where he could woodshed songs that sounded like they were from another planet.
There were still the occasional tunes like ‘Teach Your Children’ that everyone could sing along to, but ‘Marrakesh Express’ was the first bold departure. Nash had the songwriting chops and the harmonies to throw around every song he sang, but it was anyone’s guess whether that would translate when they started performing in huge venues.
Because while their songs had a lot of acoustic arrangements behind them, the accommodations during the live show weren’t always the best. Getting an acoustic guitar to resonate in an open field at Woodstock was always going to be a gamble, and even if Neil Young was there with his ripping electric guitar, getting the balance right for songs that are meant to be a little mellow wasn’t always going to resonate in those huge stadiums.
And looking back on those stadium shows, Nash said that he greatly preferred playing intimate gigs a lot better, saying, “We’re hitting the smaller rooms by design. We’ve played everything from Woodstock, which was, what, half a million people? And then to two or three friends, and everywhere in between. I want to be able to see the audience’s eyes. I want to be able to know that I’m connecting with them. It’s hard to play ‘Guinnevere’ on one acoustic guitar and two voices to half a million people.”
Whenever Nash made his way into those massive shows, he still put his all into it. Those gigs with CSN would remain iconic for a reason, and even when Nash was supporting David Gilmour in the 2000s during his gigs at the Royal Albert Hall, he brought the same kind of passion that he would have had if he were singing to only a handful of fans in a studio gig.
Whereas most people in Nash’s position would feel a sense of elation when they finally got to the level of stadium-rock act, Nash was more interested in human connection beyond everything. Certain stars can feel larger than life far too often, so it was worth it for Nash to remind everyone that he was human and simply doing his job singing songs that made people think.
