Full Moon Stub Story

The Harvest Moon Tour. It was a cold September night with an actual full harvest moon over the cornfields of Indiana, in an outdoor pavilion theater . I had just seen Neil less than a year earlier with the Crazy Horse and the Ragged Glory tour where he never so much as looked at the audience and interacted more with the speakers getting wailing sounds of glorious feedback, but here? He walked out, surrounded by multiple guitars, banjos, piano’s(Upright and grand) and even a pipe organ, and looked at the audience and said, "What do you want to hear?" Pure bliss.
He would just kind of....stroll... from one instrument to
another decide either to heed the calls for requests he asked for... or play something off the "new one",
or a "standard" from an endless catalog. And of course the "new ones" where even welcomed as
Harvest Moon is chalked full of classics. He even told his "rain-dog" story for his dog "Elvis".
There's a song about his dog called "Old King" and he talks about how once at a tour bus stop "King" wander off and when it started raining a bit he couldn't find his way back. They had to go on but as soon as he got the next show song fans had already found him and were on the way to the show. I don't remember if said he had tags or whatever, but it was a quick reunion none-the-less.


So after playing the banjo on that song he might stroll over to the grand piano and the opening chords
of "After the Gold Rush" and when you can actually look up and see "full moon in (your) eyes"? and you DO feel like getting high? That's is one of those concert "calls to action", almost like synchronized swearing in songs like Mellencamp's "Play Guitar" "forget all about that macho sh*#, and learn to play guitar." Or Charley Daniels, "The Devil Went Down to Georgia"... told you once you sonuvabiatch"

At one point, per his request don't forget, there was a group of folks that kept shouting “Pocahontas” and when they finally got his attention he said, “I haven’t played that in years.. if I get lost help me out…” And sure enough in the middle of the song

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when he came around to the refrain again he said “Don’t just stand there and dance…” The proud group were the only ones standing during the slow song, ”…Help me out…” one of the group walked down to the front of the stage and ah yes “…I wish I was a trapper…” I looked it up one time… saw all the playlists before and after... and sure enough, he hadn’t played it before that night but it was a staple every night after and even made it to the “MTV: Unplugged” CD. Awesome! 

Even I was a bit unsure of which song they were screaming for but when he started with “Aura Borealis… Icy Skies at night…”  I was right there…

(I'm  inserting a hyperlink because I already inserted the embedded version of "Hurricane") Here's a link the that performance on M-TV Click here to see Neil perform "Pocohantas" on M-TV Unplugged

"... icy sky at night...."

And another thing that made this an amazing night was his two opening acts. First, John Hammond and then Shawn Colvin. A classic veteran and, at the time, a relative unknown. Much like the three person power trio’s he lined up less than year earlier of Social Distortion, Sonic Youth and himself and Crazy Horse. This time he had two acts with only their voice and their guitars, to match his solo show.
John Hammond foot stomped his way through his blues classics, and when Shawn Colvin sang about flying away to “Orion in the Sky” underneath actual stars, I was hooked long before “Sunny Came Home” years later.

As sort of a post-script I want to mention my "date" that night. As usual I couldn't get one.
"Even for Neil Young? How much of a loser are you?!?!" Ha! Well as backup dates I could always rely
on my friends JD and Kathy, (too bad they don't do Facebook or I'd link their name as agreeing to be in my book) Kathy was always one to see new wave stuff, Flock of Seagulls or something, JD was more classic-rockso he was my "date" on the full moon harvest moon night... lol 

Below is the song-set for that evening. I noticed someone labeled "Pocahontas" as "Premiere: Tour Debut" Works for me... 


Link to The Harvest Moon Tour Song Set 1992 
{Remember if you go check out this sight take note of the little arrow after each song...if you click this it will find the most applicable song it can (sometimes getting wrong artist if they're doing a "cover tune")So if you're having trouble remember which song he closed with or wonder what Neil would do for an encore that tour etc... you can refresh your memory... and it play onthrough to the next song all the way to the
end of the set-list barring any copyright issues... because otherwise it'll stop giving the
"you much watch on YouTube directly" error...}


 

RP PS(Radio Paradise Post Script) One song Bill “insists” on playing here is the pipe organ version of "Hurricane", despite a lot of negative response to such a weird eerie version. But I tell you… every time I hear it, it gives my goose bumps and sends me back to that night when he wandered from instrument to instrument and eventually arrived at that organ, pumped his feet, pressed those keys and those famous opening notes bled out into the cool harvest moon night… it was… incredible.
{Trying something new here, embedded below "should be" Neil playing "Like a Hurricane" on M-TV Unplugged 1993}