Ain't that mud in your eye

There seems to be a brief hiatus in the sequence of tours by bands whom I haven't seen play for forty years. I have therefore embarked on a brief diversion into watching acts whom I wished that I had seen forty years ago, but for some reason didn't. First up was Nils Lofgren, who on his last visit to Leeds played alongside Bruce Springsteen in front of twenty thousand people at the opening of the arena. On this occasion he had to make do with a capacity crowd of seven hundred and fifty at the City Varieties, but it didn't seem to affect his enthusiasm or energy.

It was an excellent gig, indeed an early contender for the hotly contested and prestigious 'Discourses on Wargaming' concert of the year title. Lofgren of course has not just been a member of the E-Street Band, but also of Crazy Horse and the highlight for me, being as you know somewhat of a pseud, was his explanation of how he had come up with the piano part on 'Southern Man' whilst playing on the sessions for 'After the Goldrush'. The speeding up of the piano during Neil Young's guitar solos apparently owes a debt to the accordion lessons that his parents made him take as a child in Chicago.

Lofgren is as good a guitarist as I have ever seen. Certainly he knocked spots off Clapton's concert last year (and was immensely more personable), and I'd put him up there with Catfish Keith; high praise indeed. He also played keyboards, a harp (I don't mean a harmonica, I mean a real harp) and tapdanced. Sadly a double hip replacement meant that the trampoline has been retired.

Song of the set - not yet a blog award, but I'm considering it - was final encore 'Shine Silently', but he naturally also performed favourites such as 'Keith Don't Go', 'I Came to Dance', etc.

The last song is also by way of a lead in to tomorrow's post.