What an incredible night. I have always been a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young fan, and have seen them in their various iterations a half dozen times over the years, but this was the first time seeing David Crosby solo. It was just him, his guitar, his music and his stories. As usual, I wanted to get a good seat close to the stage and as this was a general admission show with only limited reserved seating, I decided to be one of those folks who got a reserved seat…I hate waiting in line and rushing in for the best seat. I bought the VIP, reserved ticket through David Crosby’s web site and relatively speaking, it was fairly inexpensive. When I showed up at the venue, little did I know that I was the ONLY one who had a reserved seat. The person at the ticket booth said “oh, Mr. Ashley, we have been waiting for you, go stand over there and someone will be right with you”. I was promptly met by the venue manager, who let me in the door about 20 minutes before the venue opened and while all of the GA folks were lined up around the corner and down the street in the cold…I have to tell you I felt pretty special. It didn’t end there….The manager, gave me a breif tour of the facility, showing me where the bar was, the merchandise, the restrooms and took me to my seat, which happened to be in the front row center, and it had a sign on it saying “Reserved for Bryon A.”. I went to the merchandise counter to collect my VIP swag, and the merch guy also said, “Oh, Bryon… I have been waiting for you”, and thanked me profusely for being such a big fan. I have been to a lot of shows and have upgraded to the VIP experience, but this was truly the only one where I actually felt like a real VIP.
This was the first time I have been to the Neptune Theater in Seattle and was a bit apprehensive that it was going to be small, dingy and have poor sound. I was very pleasantly surprised when I walked in. It was “vintage” and had a great rustic look and feel. It was very well decorated with the Neptune theme, with stained glass, statues and reliefs on the walls.
David Crosby came on promptly at 8:00pm. He played a great set of songs spanning his career from the Byrds, through all of the versions CSNY, and even a Joni Mitchell song “For Free”. What was great about this show was that before each song he would tell a short story about where he was in his life and what each song meant to him, whether it was his loves of his life in “Guinnever”, the heavy heart he had following the death of his girlfriend at the time of making “Deja Vu” to how he was kicked out of the Byrds by writing the song”Triad”. He also (obviously) had a lot to say about politics, and of course did not care much for the current state of the government or the presidential prospects.
Although, the harmonies of CSN will never be beaten, he is truly the backbone of those harmonies and has a beautiful voice which is still as good today as it was 40 years ago. His guitar style is also so unique in the multitude of tunings and chord structure…something only I can dream of being able to emulate.
This show will go down as one of my favorites not only for the performance, but also the experience at the Neptune Theater.
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