It was September 1984, and I remember standing outside Charlie Starr in Springfield, Ohio, with a friend and a thousand other Neil Young fans. Charlie Starr was a nightclub with a honky-tonk theme and a parking lot that stretched forever—or long enough that if you were at the end of the ticket line that was moving at a glacial pace, you might wonder if you were going to walk in as Young was playing his final encore.
“I sure hope they have a ticket left,” I said from the end of the line. “After all, I drove here all the way from Cincinnati to see this, and I’d hate to drive back knowing I wasted my time.”
After a long silence, a half dozen people looked at each other with concerned faces and a young man finally broke the news to me. “Buddy, I hate to tell you this,” he said in a grave voice, “but this show’s been sold out for a long, long time.”
“You’re kidding,” I squeaked, hoping my face looked pale.
When my friend laughed, the charade was over—even I knew that if Neil Young is playing a bar (a very large bar, but still) tickets will evaporate immediately. Charlie Starr seated about 3,000 people, an unusual venue for him to play, but the choice made sense. Since the mid-1800s International Harvester produced farm machinery in Springfield, but the factory was in lay-off mode, as so many factories were in the mid-1980s. By bringing his International Harvesters to a smaller venue in the city, Young was showing some solidarity. And I ended up getting into that show.
That same spirit shines through on A Treasure, the latest release from Young’s vaults.
The album is coming out these days and is available as DVD, BlueRay, Vinyl. That’s why here we show a rough video of 1976, “The Treasure” – Stills/Young band. Two great guitarrists together. That’s raw and wild:
The “Rolling Stone” has an exclusive pre-listen audio track of “Amber Jean” (1984) from the upcoming “A TREASURE” album for “The Archives” project, to be released on June 14:
JUNE 14TH ON REPRISE RECORDS
NEILYOUNG.COM AND ITUNES PRE-ORDER LAUNCHES APRIL 12TH
SPECIAL DOUBLE-DISC VINYL EDITION AVAILABLE ON MAY 24TH
*1- Amber Jean (9/20/84) Nashville Now TV Nashville, TN
2- Are You Ready For The Country? (9/21/84) Riverbend Music Center
Cincinnati, OH
3- It Might Have Been 9/25/84 Austin City Limits TV Austin, Texas
4- Bound For Glory 9/29/84 Gilleys’s Rodeo Arena Pasadena, TX
*5- Let Your Fingers Do The Walking (10/22/84) Universal Amphitheater
Universal City, CA
6- Flying On The Ground Is Wrong (10/26/84) Greek Theater Berkeley, CA
7- Motor City (10/26/84) Greek Theater Berkeley, CA
*8- Soul Of A Woman (10/26/84) Greek Theater Berkeley, CA
9- Get Back To The Country (10/26/84) Greek Theater Berkeley, CA
10- Southern Pacific (9/1/85) Minnesota State Fair St. Paul, MN
*11- Nothing Is Perfect (9/1/85) Minnesota State Fair St. Paul, MN
*12- Grey Riders (9/10/85) Pier 84 New York City, NY
A Treasure
Neil Young & The International Harvesters
From our friends at Shakey Pictures:
NEIL YOUNG TO RELEASE LIVE ALBUM, ENTITLED A TREASURE ON REPRISE RECORDS
RENOWNED ROCKER UNEARTHS LIVE COUNTRY ALBUM RECORDED WITH LEGENDARY BAND, THE INTERNATIONAL HARVESTERS, WHILE ON TOUR IN THE U.S. IN 1984
The 12-track live album A Treasure includes songs recorded during Young’s 1984 U.S. tour in support of his album Old Ways and contains six previously unreleased tracks. Among those, “Grey Riders” will be the first track serviced to radio. A Treasure features Young’s onstage work with some of the greatest artists in the history of country music, including the late, great Ben Keith on steel and slide guitar and Rufus Thibodeaux on fiddle, along with living legends Spooner Oldham and Hargus “Pig” Robbins on piano, Tim Drummond and Joe Allen on bass, and Karl Himmel on drums, among many others. A Treasure is Young’s first release since last year’s Grammy- and Juno Award-winning album, Le Noise.
The live album captures this iconic artist during a fascinating time in his career, when he was facing criticism and lawsuits from his then current record company for exploring a more traditionally country sound. “You can call me erratic,” Young said when asked at the time about his tendency toward musical shape-shifting, “but I’ve been consistent about it, consistently erratic.” Always celebrated for his musical versatility, A Treasure, is akin to a sonic time capsule, instantly transporting the listener to the time and place when it was made. “I love this record,” Young says. “I hadn’t heard these takes in 25 years, but when we unearthed them co-producer Ben Keith said, ‘This is a treasure.’”
Part of what makes A Treasure so compelling is the musical contributions of The International Harvesters, with whom Young was playing at the time. Many of them were already paragons within the country music world and their notoriety has only grown in the years since. “I just love to hear those guys,” Young says. “They’re all country music legends.” Those behind the scenes also made significant contributions to A Treasure’s sonic potency. Tim Mulligan mixed and mastered the tracks. At the time these songs were recorded, Bob Stern was the tour manager, Tim Foster ran the stage, and Larry Cregg was in charge of the band’s instruments.
A Treasure will be released in several formats, including standard CD, vinyl, digital download with and without videos, and as a deluxe CD/Blu-ray package. The Blu-Ray version will feature a curated selection of video that lends context and imagistic power to the tracks. “I like to look at these old live videos and listen to what I think are the best versions of these songs,” Young says. “It’s fun to see what we looked like when we were playing it then.”
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Special thanks to Thrasher’s Wheat.
“When I first got the bad news that you set me free, The band played the old country waltz to me. ” by -- Neil Young
Neil Young on Tour
Sugar Mountain setlists
Tom Hambleton provides BNB with setlists, thankfully. His website is the most comprehensive searchable archives on the Internets about anything Neil Young related setlists. Goto Sugar Mountain.
memphish on 
Albert Stromann on 
liza on 
Baz on 
