Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
19 February 2000
MGM Grand Garden, Las Vegas, NV
I enjoyed the 2 February 2000 Rose Garden Show so much I decided to see the group again. Prior to the show, my college friend and I ran into Graham and Susan Nash, sipping on espressos. We both wished him a good show. He returned the gesture. How cool!
The show had pretty much the same setlist. One notable exception was the addition of Neil Young's "Old Man", which featured harmonies that, though arranged differently, rivaled those by James Taylor and Linda Rondstadt on his 1972 studio version on Harvest.
Other unique moments stood out at this particular show. Before "Marrakesh Express", Neil went off on a 3-minute dialogue about the lack of commuter trains in Las Vegas, which served to make Stills giggle nervously.
Nash played a nice electric piano on "Slowpoke".
I got a flashback to Buffalo Springfield days when Neil yelled out "Wait for me!" while tuning his guitar. Stills, responded by saying, "Okay, Wild Bill!". Interesting is how a similar exchange occurred at a taped live show at Whittier High School in 1967. We can only hope that the Buffalo Springfield boxed set comes out soon.
Shortly before "Seen Enough", Stills lamented at how he made the mistake of writing an extremely long set of lyrics for a song that he only hoped he wouldn't f#%$ up performing it live.
By far the biggest ovation of the evening came after Nash's "Our House". Extremely tight and beautiful harmonies. For that matter, the acoustic set got the strongest response from the audience. 24 hours earlier, CSNY performed the same acoustic set for a live VH1 taping of "Storytellers", set to air 12 March 2000. Should be a nice show!
Again, without hardly any keyboards, the show sounded somewhat relaxed and free, though very nice. Stills and Young stole the show with their trading guitar licks. Young's guitar riffs during "Woodstock", "Almost Cut My Hair", "For What It's Worth", and "Ohio" sounded very much like the respective studio versions. A nice flashback.
When CSNY release a DVD of this tour, it'll be a keeper.
The next morning, my friend and I turned on the tube and watched the Great American Race, the Daytona 500. Is this a great country or what?
[*****] - Steven T.
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