Lost in Music

In a career that’s spanned 45 years and more than 30 studio albums - just how do you go about assembling a setlist that does justice to Neil Young?

OK, so we can discount most of the 80’s when he lost his mojo and briefly flirted with synthesizers, but that still leaves a Mount Everest-sized cliff face of great work to clamber over. For my money, even Young’s biggest rivals like Dylan, Springsteen and Lennon and McCartney all come up short over the long haul.

Five-piece tribute band Heart of Rust rose to the challenge admirably though, cannily merging shoe-in choices with relative obscurities for the die-hards.

And they were equally fine at showing both sides of Young’s persona - the gnarly Crazy Horse rock hero and the delicate folk troubadour.

David James had Young’s distinctive nasally, shaky vocals down to a tee as well as his nasty, overdriven Gibson electric sound.

They kicked off in reflective mode, with the nostalgic Buffalo Springfield Again and two prime cuts from his most commercially successful album, Harvest - Old Man and Out On The Weekend, the latter boasting a sweet pedal steel solo from Yi Vei Kok in the Ben Keith role. Bassist Tony Fitzpatrick took over on vocal duties for Helpless before the band turned the guitars up and blasted out the still-powerful Ohio and Southern Man, which found James channelling his hero’s soloing style like he was wrestling with an electric eel.

Second half selections went more off piste and included Don’t Be Denied, Roll Another Number (For The Road) and a brave stab at the frazzled Mellow My Mind.

Of course, no Young tribute would be complete without a little self-indulgent jamming and the band got their opportunity to stretch out with Cortez The Killer and Down By The River. Young himself, has been known to start those songs clean shaven and finish with a full beard.

As curfew passed, James came full circle and squeezed in an unamplified version of Young’s Sugar Mountain, penned when the songwriter was just 19.  Five decades on, he’s still casting a spell over us.

Rating: 7/10

STEVE HARNELL

Dodgy have taken a somewhat softly softly approach to their comeback since burying the hatchet back in 2008.

Reunion shows and festival dates have been sprinkled around here and there, but it’s only really now that they’ve upped the ante and gone for broke.

The reason? Well, it’s the small matter of a new studio album, Stand Upright In A Cool Place, which is slated for release next February. They’re pretty confident about its quality, too, and bravely played it in its entirety during the first half of this Fleece show.

There’s no grand rethink in terms of their approach - the three-part harmonies and classic songcraft of their Britpop heyday still remain.

The acoustic-led openers Tripped & Fell and What Became of You proved frontman and songwriter Nigel Clark hasn’t lost his keen ear for hooky melodies while the woozy melancholia of Waiting For The Sun made for another impressive offering.

And the fire in their bellies at social injustice is as fierce as ever - the sparkling power pop of We Try and folky fingerpicked Find A Place both burned with righteous ire. Pick of the bunch was Raggedstone Hill where tubthumper Matthew Priest was finally let off the leash to fly around the kit on some tasty Keith Moon-style drum fills.

For the greatest hits second half, the spirit of The Who was also clear with a cracking version of In A Room before the Beatlesque swoon of Found You sauntered into view.

They were both trumped though by the superb one-two punch of a super-funky Good Enough which prompted the first crowd singalong of the night and a rollicking Staying Out For The Summer - the latter just what we needed on a bitterly cold December evening.

After less than 45 minutes of hits, they perhaps hadn’t built up enough momentum to risk epic ballad Grassman, but it did provide a nice counterpoint to their feistier moments.

It’s good to have them back, for sure, and they’ve a lot to be optimistic about. Dodgy were always too good to languish in the Where Are They Now? file.

Rating: 7/10

STEVE HARNELL