News 971018-1

Neil Young Builds Bridge Through Music

Leads all-star cast including Smashing Pumpkins in annual benefit for physically challenged kids.

by Addicted To Noise Senior Writer Gil Kaufman

Young's set was the highlight, but Pumpkins and Marilyn Manson cameos were a big hit too. Photo by Jay Blakesberg.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA -- It was impossible to tell what was going on in Neil Young's head Saturday when he took the stage for the second time, sat down on a stool with his acoustic guitar and made some of the most beautiful music of his long career.

Still, if you were there, it was not hard to imagine.

Perhaps he was thinking about the thousands of enthusiastic fans who had shown up again for his 11th annual Bridge School Benefit Concert, or the eclectic lineup of musical artists who had donated their talents to the cause for another year. Or he could have been thinking about the beautifully cool night with its starry sky. Then again, maybe he was thinking about the children behind him.

"It blows me away," he said, in between his set, "all the support we get. It just blows my mind."

It was the rare kind of instantaneous benefit where hard work and good music were immediately transformed into giddy smiles and elation. Guitars were strummed and before the notes faded, the faces of the children for whom Neil and Pegi Young's benefit show was organized filled the theater with a sort of visual melody.

Positioned on a small riser at the back of the stage, the mostly wheel-chair bound kids had the best seats in the house during the nearly eight-hour show on Saturday (Oct. 18) at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, Calif., which featured uncharacteristic acoustic sets from bands such as Metallica, the Smashing Pumpkins and Lou Reed. There were also energetic performances by Alanis Morissette and Blues Traveler, as well as the Dave Matthews Band, and a surprise appearance by the shock rock king himself, Marilyn Manson.

And while each act dug deep to give something special to the day, it was Young who reached deepest to offer a hauntingly emotional set, as potent and profound as any he has ever played.

As tradition has it, Young opened the show, which raises funds for the school founded by his wife Pegi to help physically challenged children like their own to cope with the disabilities through various technology. After a quick run-through of his classic "Long May You Run," folkie singer/songwriter Kacy Crowley performed a brief set which was followed by Blues Traveler and their itinerant leader John Popper. Popper not only sat in with nearly every artist on the bill over the evening's course, but set the tone for the event by lavishing his attentions not on the paid audience, but on the children to whom the night was dedicated.

Popper, in his characteristic dungaree jacket and baggy blue jeans, made a point of slapping hands with the Bridge School children, most of whom sat in wheelchairs staring in amazement at the large man with the mighty harmonica. His band ran through a set of newer material such as "Canadian Rose," mixed in with audience favorites "Run Around" and "But Anyway."

Next came the ever-intense Lou Reed and his band of black-outfitted urban hipsters. Offering a mix of classic Velvet Underground songs, Reed favorites and a few new tunes, Reed treated the crowd and the kids to a greatest hits performance that was as driving as it was passionate. Opening with the Velvet Underground's "I'll Be Your Mirror," Reed, flanked by long-time bassist Fernando Saunders, then re-worked VU's "Perfect Day" as a dark, somber march and unleashed "The Kids," which featured the classic Reed lines "they're taking her children away/ they said she's not a good mother." The New York legend also re-vamped "Vicious" as a chugging, bluesy track with a harmonica solo and "Hang On To Your Emotion" as the kind of '50s doo-wop ditty that inspired him to get into music in the first place, with Saunders singing a falsetto lead.

Reed also debuted the bittersweet "What Do You Call Love," ("is it more than a heart's hieroglyphics?") and "Talking Book," which featured the line "I wish I had a talking book/ with buttons you could push," fitting given the electronic communication devices in use by many of the children. The ex-Velvet Underground leader finished the set with a dervish, nimble take on "New Sensations," a countryish "Pale Blue Eyes," "Dirty Blvd." and a shuffling "Sweet Jane."

Metallica, who by their own admission were a bit ragged around the edges, rocked as hard as you would expect, despite all the acoustic trappings. Opening with a bluesy new tune that featured the accompaniment of a hurdy-gurdy, singer James Hetfield invited Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell on stage for an unironic Nashville-tinged run through Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Tuesday's Gone."

The band, with Hetfield losing none of his devilish swagger even as he sat perched on a stool half-facing the children, was joined by Popper for a set-closing run through "Last Call."

Then came the night's peak performance. Young, dressed in his characteristic flannel shirt and blues jeans, wandered out like a roadie looking for a guitar. Seated on a lone stool facing the audience, he reached for his instrument, bowed his head and launched into a mesmerizing set that included a mournful "Slowpoke," as well as a new song called "Buffalo Springfield Again," in which -- while picking the guitar like a banjo -- Young extended his hands to his old bandmates as if to say, let's let bygones be bygones. Later, he hammered the strings to create an almost drum-like resonance during "Good To See You Again." He finger-picked "Slip Away," and then stepped up to his pipe organ and, bent nearly double behind it, delivered a haunting version of "Mother Earth."

"After the Goldrush" featured dueling-harmonicas between Young and Willie Nelson sideman Mickey Raphael, with Popper joining in on harp on "This Notes For You," Young's classic lampoon of corporate sponsorship of rock bands, which the evening's host introduced as "a dumb song I wrote a long time ago."

Her long hair falling Crystal Gayle-like to her hips, a focused and supremely self-confident Alanis Morissette, dressed in a flowing brown dress, wowed the crowd with a powerful set that ranged from the mantra-like "All I Really Want," to the scat vocalese of a new song "Gorgeous," the Joni Mitchellish jazz of a second new one, "London," and the arty folk of "No Pressure Over Cappuccinos." A fourth new, still-untitled song was introduced as "She Gave Me A Wink," and featured Morissette's operatic yodel and stunning vocal leaps over a sly, sexy blues that gave way to the set-closing cover of the Beatles "Norwegian Wood."

After a high-energy set from the Dave Matthews Band that more than once brought the mostly sedentary crowd to its feet, the Smashing Pumpkins closed the show with a handful of unfamiliar tunes and re-worked classics. Opening with two new songs, the elegiac "To Sheila" and "Never Apart," the quartet moved through a frail, dirge-like version of their mega-hit "Tonight, Tonight" and the b-side "Set The Ray to Jerry," during which the bald-one, Billy Corgan, laid his guitar across his lap so he could wave his hands around in the air like a magician moving in slow motion. From there, the main Pumpkin fast-strummed his way through a sped-up version of "1979."

"Bullet with Butterfly Wings" brought a monster beat from Filter drummer Matt Walker, with a hushed, finger-picking chorus. And just when young Pumpkin fans in the crowd had screeched themselves hoarse, emerging from the backstage shadows, in a white cowboy hat, fake black fur coat and slinky silver jumpsuit, came the night's most unexpected guest. Marilyn Manson and his guitarist Twiggy Ramirez joined the Pumpkins for a pair of duets featuring vocal as well as physical interchanges between Manson and Corgan.

Looking as sexually ambiguous as ever, Manson and Corgan teamed up on "Eye," weaving their surprisingly complimentary vocals almost seamlessly. Then came a creepy and chaotic run through of Manson's "Beautiful People," with a chorus featuring a slightly silly call-and-response between Corgan and guitarist James Iha. It all ended with Manson kissing Corgan on his shiney reflective head, leaving a black lipstick smudge as a reminder.

As the final notes of the Pumpkins' "Muzzle" rang around the theater, Neil and Pegi Young stood side by side at stage right applauding wildly. Led by Corgan, the band strutted past them, in true rock-star fashion.

The Youngs then emerged arm in arm to thank the audience as the lights went on.

There would be no time for an all-star jam this night, although you'd never have known it, judging from the wide eyes and infectious smiles filling the faces of the night's biggest stars of all, those flickering brightly at the back of the stage. [Mon., Oct. 20, 1997, 9 a.m. PDT]