Sunday 20 May 2012

Crosby, Stills & Nash


This show started out with some disappointment and a tinge of excitement as Graham Nash came out to inform the crowd that David Crosby was sick and had been told to cancel the show.  Instead, Crosby had decided to play on, but wouldn't be able to sing (the couple of times he croakly addressed the audience confirmed there was no way he could sing much).  Refunds were offered if anyone wanted them, but 'they'd be missing one of the most interesting Crosby, Stills & Nash shows ever'.  In the end this simply meant that a couple of Crosby-centric songs were played without him.

The loss of Crosby was certainly felt.  While Nash's voice has held up fairly well Stephen Still's voice is pretty shot (on the positive side he's still a great guitarist).  Maybe they normally manage to hide this a bit by having the three of them singing, and not having Stills sing lead on as many songs, but tonight that wasn't possible.  It also hurt that there were some songs that aren't possible without Crosby (including gems like Almost Cut My Hair, which I'd been looking forward to hearing since getting a ticket).  Stills managed a pretty decent version of Long Time Gone, but other than that this was pretty much the Stills/Nash show.  Unsurprisingly, the set was substantially shorter than advertised.  Understandable, but still disappointing that they dropped songs off the setlist - Woodstock was listed for the first song of the encore but wasn't played.

The sound for this is very good, but that really highlights that, vocally, these guys are a bit past it.  This one is worthwhile for those who were there and the hardcore fans, but for those unfamiliar with their work, look for something from their younger days.

http://www.mediafire.com/?m5qiw2pmlh5te

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