As part of the homework for my History of Popular Music class, I was supposed to go to a live event, take notes, and then write a little blurb about it for class.

One little problem. I am totally not ready for a live concert yet. My social anxiety/agoraphobia precludes it. I explained this to my prof, and she said I could watch a concert online instead. I checked Netflix and found a movie called Neil Young : Journeys and watched it.

It starts with something I absolutely love : Neil Young in a beat up old car, driving, and with us in the passenger seat. Instantly, I am clicked right in. By shooting the footage that way, the movie creates a feeling of comfort and unforced familiarity by putting us in a position nearly every Canadian has been in.

Especially me, as I don’t drive.

And I find it especially charming that Neil is doing the driving. That’s not something you see a lot of musical legends doing. But that’s one of the things I like about him. He’s not interested in all that fancy Hollywood crap. Throughout the film, even on stage, he’s just some Canadian guy. It makes him easy to identify with.

In my case, it helps that he reminds me of my Uncle Sonny.

Interspersed with the songs, for the rest of the movie, we have segments done in this style.

Starting at the place he was born. The first thing he says there is “This is Omeemee^[1], a town in North Ontario…. ” and my mind instantly screamed “With dream-comfort memories to spare??”

So he drives us through Omeemee, and points out various places from his childhood. They look pretty much like places from any small Canadian town, including the one I come from. The church. The school. The hall where all kinds of events, from weddings to concerts to the school play, are held.

Then on to Pickering, where his family moved when he was pretty young. There, he and his brother talk about their family home that burned down.

While in Pickering, he tells us of a “friend” called, get this, Goof Williamson. I doubt that’s what it says on the man’s birth certificate, but I knew lots of people like that growing up. Their nickname is their real name (my brother used to be friends with Toothpick and Freeway) because, for whatever reason (Catholicism), there’s a lot of people with the same damned name around.

This “friend” convinced young, naive, trusting Neil to try to eat road tar by saying “it tastes bad at first, but if you keep going, it tastes just like chocolate!”.

Oh, and at one point, Neil refers to Canada geese as “honkers”, which I find completely adorable.

And so on and so on, until they get to the famous Massey Hall, where the concert takes place.

The concert pieces are a bit of a mixed bag for me, because I know a bunch of Neil Young song but not nearly all of them. How could I? He’s written so many! And I found myself wondering what that must be like. To have a huge repertoire of music that is all your own creation. It is a hard thing for me to truly wrap my brain around.

I mean, as a writer, I might one day have a bookcase shelf full of books, but I won’t be expected to be able to recite them night after night.

I also wonder what it must be like to be able to make a capacity crowd erupt in joy and applause just by strumming the opening chords to one of your songs. It must be one of those things that make you feel powerful and humble at the same time. It’s very immediate proof of how you have touched people’s lives with your music.

What a rare privilege! Such responsibility…. and love.

The fact that I don’t know 3/4 of the songs means that the concert functions as a bit of a Neil Young primer for me. I didn’t hear any songs I immediately wanted to add to my collection. But it was a wonderful overview of his ouvre, and I gained a new respect for him as a songwriter.

The concert is from 2011, so Neil is quite old in it. 66, to be precise. Luckily, one of the only benefits of a face like his is that as you age, you just become craggier and more wratched looking. You still look like the same person, only… more so.

But you can tell his age by how much effort he has to put in to sing. It’s kind of like watching someone play an old pedal pipe organ that has a lot of leaks. It takes so much effort just to get the sound out.

As a result, he sort of looks like he is in pain for the whole concert. For any other performer, that might be a problem. But for him, it just means his face finally matches his singing style.

Okay, okay, I will stop with the Neil Young jokes. I kid because I love. Also, he’s a Canadian national treasure, and that makes me, as a Canadian, uncomfortable.

Oh, I almost forgot the most extraordinary thing about the concert : there’s no band. None. It’s just Neil, a harmonica, a piano, an electric organ, and his guitar.

How many musicians could do that? Accompany themselves on every song with a variety of instruments? No band needed? And he’s such a mesmerizing performer with such beautiful songs that you don’t even notice. His songs don’t need a lot of instruments playing in order to sound good.

And you can tell he is proficient in all those instruments by the offhanded, easy, almost causal way he plays them. It almost looks like he can just tell his hands to play the accompaniment and then concentrate on singing. Or better yet….. the meaning of what he is singing.

I respect (and envy) that very much.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow!