In 1990,
Neil Young & Crazy Horse got the jump on the grunge movement with their brilliantly scrappy and distortion-coated release
Ragged Glory. That record (along with their 1991 tour and live album counterpart
Weld) celebrated feedback and volume, using overdriven guitars to deliver some of
Young's most spirited and straightforwardly melodic songwriting.
FU##IN' UP revisits the songs from
Ragged Glory more than 30 years later, reframing them in a live setting that's somehow even more ragged, and just as glorious. The set was captured at an intimate venue in Toronto on November 4, 2023, during a private birthday party. The order of the songs is rearranged to run exactly as the track listing for
Ragged Glory did, presenting each song with a new title taken from parts of the tune's lyrics. For instance, opening track "City Life," played later on in the concert, is a take on
Ragged Glory's first song, "Country Home," much as the rocky push of "To Follow One's Own Dream" breathes new life into "Days That Used to Be." "Farmer John," a cover song, retains its original title, and
Ragged Glory finale "Mother Earth (Natural Anthem)" is absent from
FU##IN' UP. The performances are loose and carefree, with
Young and his longtime collaborators (bassist
Billy Talbot, drummer
Ralph Molina, and both
Micah Nelson and
Nils Lofgren trading off on guitar and piano duties) sounding comfortable with the songs and each other, and unconcerned with the occasional stretched vocal register or flubbed note. The group stretches out a little more than on record, as well, as
Young tries new tricks with his guitar tones and the band injects some exploration into the jammier sections of the tunes.
FU##IN' UP feels less like a nostalgic journey through the past and more like good friends learning new things by remembering shared times. It's rough-around-the-edges fun, with the warmth of familiarity and kinship that
Neil Young & Crazy Horse have built by playing together for more than half a century. ~ TiVo Staff
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