In 2022, Neil Younger launched into his first live performance tour in nearly 4 years, 15 reveals that by no means strayed too removed from the Californian shoreline. For Younger – subjected, like all of us, to lockdown restrictions – this was the longest interval he’d been off the street since 1978. As a consequence, Coastal finds Younger in unusually reflective type. “It’s going to be an actual journey strolling on the market on stage,” he confides to driver (and straight man) Jerry Don Borden. “Focus elsewhere,” advises Borden sagely as he pilots Younger’s beloved Silver Eagle tour bus alongside the freeway.
Directed affectionately by Daryl Hannah, Younger’s spouse, we see him soundchecking within the afternoon sunshine, practising vocal warm-ups in his bus and eventually taking the lengthy stroll in direction of the stage itself. “I’m fucking scared,” he confesses with solely a success of fun on the tour’s opening evening.
Pre-show jitters or one thing extra existential, however up on stage, Younger eases into a well-known function, working the viewers with the deftness of a humorist as jovial digressions on the provenance of his trusty pump organ or the standard of a close-by firework show pepper the set.
Inevitably, there is a component of rinse and repeat right here: bus, soundcheck, present, bus, soundcheck, present and so forth. What can we find out about Younger from these routines, then? Whereas tour bus natter ranges from the roadside burial of a useless mouse to Howard Hughes’ aviation experiments and the oil and gasoline platforms that cleave the Southern California coast, Younger’s ideas repeatedly return to the music he’s taking part in on this tour. “They suppose they need to hear the hits, as a result of that’s all they’ve ever heard,” he tells Borden. “However individuals prefer to take heed to music and if the music is vibrating, they’re there.” Younger should really feel vindicated, then when deep cuts like the gorgeous piano variations of Sleeps With Angels’ “A Dream That Can Final” and Are You Passionate’s “After I Maintain You In My Arms” are met with resounding applause.
“We could be getting previous, however we’re not useless but,” shouts one well-wisher because the Silver Eagle pulls out of the backstage space, heading again out onto the freeway.
