Sunday, July 31, 2005

Eighty Feet of Waterline Nicely Making Way

We saw Crosby, Stills and Nash last night at the Bank of America Pavilion. Checking off another classic rock giant before they become too decrepit or too dead to play anymore. (Fortunately, we had the foresight to see Warren Zevon at First Avenue in Minneapolis back in 1991. David Crosby, who is kind of a bore on stage, said that he finished the song "Delta" at Warren's house in Santa Barbara under the tutelage of Jackson Browne.)
When you see the Southern Cross for the first time
You understand just why you came this way
Helen and I saw the Southern Cross for the first time on April 15, 2005, in Auckland, New Zealand and we enjoyed singing that line from the song at that moment.

Crosby has a large, but high, gut, and when he is not strumming a guitar he stands in front of the microphone with his hands in his pockets like he is waiting for a bus. Stephen Stills has a large, but droopy, almost triangular, gut, but he still plays the guitar with vigor. Graham Nash looks basically the same: skinny and leathery, like a recovering alcoholic used-car salesman.

Those sweet harmonies were still there. Stills has lost a bit -- who wouldn't have? -- but Crosby sounded as good as ever. Crosby and Nash provided the political speeches, Crosby on the evils of Yucca Mountain (but failing to indicate where a better place to store nuclear waste might be), Nash on the infuriating tendency of people to kill one another in the name of God. Stills flicked his guitar pick into the crowd after each song.

Partial set list (what I can remember, there were others):

Carry On
Questions
Marrakesh Express
Long Time Gone
Jesus of Rio
Don't Dig Here
Deja Vu
Chicago
Guinnivere
Wooden Ships
Almost Cut My Hair
For What It's Worth
Delta
Feed the People
Find the Cost of Freedom
Helplessly Hoping
Love the One You're With
Military Madness
Teach Your Children
Southern Cross
Milky Way Tonight
Got out of town on a boat for the southern islands
On a reach before a following sea
We were making for the trades on the outside
And the downhill run to Papeete

Off the wind on this heading lie the Marquesas
We got eighty feet of waterline nicely making way
In a noisy bar in Avalon I tried to call you
But on the midnight watch I realized why twice you ran away

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