POP MUSIC REVIEW - Neil Young, craftsman and his tools - The veteran performer takes a Nokia crowd on an acoustic journey, then turns up the volume.
What a run for L.A. classic-rock fans: The Eagles closed their six-night christening of the new downtown Nokia Theatre on Saturday, Bruce Springsteen reunited with the E Street Band for a two-nighter Monday and Tuesday at the venerable Sports Arena, and Neil Young made it a trifecta Tuesday, opening a pair of shows at the Nokia that wraps up Friday.
And what a case study in the varying ways to approach a performance. The Eagles exemplify the curatorial method, night after night meticulously re-creating songs as they sounded on their original recordings. Springsteen pours as much ragged passion as humanly possible into each night's shifting set list.
And then there's Young.
His "Chrome Dreams II" tour is split into two not-so-discrete halves that combine for a wide-screen window onto the creative process. The first part of his 90-minute set was an utterly solo, utterly acoustic trip through a baker's dozen songs that felt like a guided tour through a master craftsman's workshop.
Young surrounded himself with the tools of his trade -- a semicircular cove of acoustic guitars flanked by an upright piano and a baby grand with a synthesizer keyboard on top, and that other piece of indispensable solo folkie equipment, harmonicas.
This, he tacitly informed the 7,000 or so fans who paid rapt attention, is where songs are created, out of a single inquisitive, disciplined and inspired mind.
The opened-up stage reinforced the kind of theatrical bent Young has long incorporated in his performances and cinematic experiments. It was cluttered not only with band equipment but with props alluding to the workshop atmosphere. Ladders lay on the floor, colored klieg lights were out for all to see. A stack of art canvases at the back of the stage came into play in the second half as title cards to announce and illustrate each song title.
A crew member outfitted as a painter successively placed each large work on an easel at stage left as the band bit into one after another song.
"Here I am with this old guitar, doin' what I do," Young sang at the outset in 1992's "From Hank to Hendrix." It's not in the least a love song to his wife, Pegi, who joined him singing backup during the second half of his segment after her own opening set, which was modestly charming for its lack of pretension.
