I want to avoid confusion. I’m not a professional reviewer of films, and I’m no music critic. I’m a fan. A rabid fan of everything that is Neil Young. So when I was asked to weigh in on the aging rocker’s latest concert film, Neil Young: Heart of Gold, helmed by Silence of the Lambs director Jonathan Demme and filmed at the Ryman Auditorium (the Nashville home of the Grand Ole Opry), I said yes, then panicked. I wasn’t sure I was up to the challenge of judging a man I respect at least ten times more than my own father (sorry, Dad).
But what I’d forgotten is that the concert film is a genre geared towards fans. It’s a special person who claims their favourite DVD is The Last Waltz or Stop Making Sense, and it’s to those folks that Demme and Young now pay tribute.
And they do so expertly. Neil Young: Heart of Gold rocks in every way-even minus the electric guitar. That is to say, even though Young has gone back to his Harvest and Harvest Moon acoustic roots for this concert film, he still puts on a riveting, passionate, balls-out performance.
Heart of Gold was made over two nights at the Ryman in August 2005, where Young debuted his newest album, Prairie Wind. After a few quick interview snippets with Young and members of his Tennessee band (old-timers Ben Keith, Grant Boatwright, and Spooner Oldham as well as his wife, back-up singer Pegi Young), the concert begins.
Demme’s nine cameras take over to capture what could have been Young’s final performances. Diagnosed with a potentially fatal brain aneurysm in the spring of 2005, Neil refused to have his head fixed until he’d finished the Prairie Wind studio album and this film. So when the curtains part and the crowd roars and Young appears, standing tall, with white cowboy hat on and Hank Williams’ old guitar slung over his shoulder, well, my heart started to race.
And the pace never lets up from there. Neil and the band smash through Prairie Wind’s ten tracks with a mixture of honky-tonk hoedown and fragile explosiveness. The cameras stay trained on Young’s face (which appears older and puffier than usual), cutting away now and then to catch the band and the mesmerizing Emmylou Harris on back-up vocals. But Demme never turns to the audience. The viewers become the crowd at the Ryman, soaking in something new from the mind of this musical chameleon. Throughout Heart of Gold’s 103 minutes, it feels like Neil is playing for a privileged audience of one.
A high point of the film is title track “Prairie Wind,” a mediocre song on the album, but an incredible thing to watch live. Young wrenches the music out of his guitar, harp, and voice so violently that one worries his brain is going to splatter all over bass player Rick Rosas. Watching Young wet his harmonica is another tantalizing bit, if only because it signals he’s about to play the thing.
More depressing moments are Young’s attempts at stage banter. He seems rather bleary-eyed and dull. But a strange joke about his dead father’s dementia sets one at ease-at least Young’s comic timing is still intact.
The film rounds out with a set of acoustic classics, including “I am a Child,” “Harvest Moon,” a seven-guitar “Comes a Time,” “Needle and the Damage Done,” and, of course, “Heart of Gold.” Young plays the latter with his eyes closed-it’s the only song on which he does this, and it’s a tangible moment. Demme keeps the camera tight, and as Young sings the refrain, “Keeps me searching for a heart of gold/And I’m getting old,” the nostalgia is palpable.
Neil Young really is getting old. Heart of Gold is his elegant transition into senior citizenship. That may be an unnerving prospect for fans of the Crazy Horse rocker, but after watching the embarrassment that was the Rolling Stones’ Super Bowl halftime set, I’m just thankful that Young’s aging gracefully.
And who knows, he just might have a few reincarnations left in him. Until then, Neil Young: Heart of Gold is a new hallmark for sexagenarian rock, and definitely one for the collectors’ shelves.
