CSYN Déjà Vu Live - Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY) Album Review

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY)

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Album Review

Whipping up the crowd from the start with Crosby's limp What Are Their Names, legendary CSN&Y roll back the years on this angry attack on US war politics.

Déjà Vu was the first album (after Neil Young joined David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash's CS&N) in March 1970 hitting the top spot on the US Billboard chart, spawning three Top 40 singles - Teach Your Children, Our House and Woodstock. Mystifyingly, Young didn't appear on all of the tracks back then. Young added more edge to the proceedings with a volatile element, counter weighting his band mates more direct philosophy thus becoming favourites with the Woodstock Nation. They succeeded also, because of some individual backgrounds in short-lived Buffalo Springfield and The Byrds, becoming one of America's first super groups, adopting a mix of country and rock flavours, apparently taking in the region of 800 hours to complete, quite believable considering the attention to detail. Enough of the original. How, after decades apart, would this temperamental bunch fare? Well, anyone expecting a track-by-track run through of the original are in for a suck-in. Of the 10, you only get two - Déjà Vu and Teach Your Children - scandalous really. Looking at this tracklisting and the general tone of the band and crowd, it's nothing more than a direct ant-war album. Great, if you want call it - CSN&Y..get.. whatever, but to call it DÉJÀ VU LIVE is disgraceful, and as fan of the band, I was expecting what it ' says on the tin'. Instead, it appears it was actually a gig from their controversial Freedom Of Speech 2006 North America tour, with the Iraq war its backdrop, so why not say so? Young's Living With War album was, er, ruddy awful, to put it mildly. You get the feeling that this gig was Young's idea (maybe not) for venting his anger, rather than recreating the spirit (as I'm sure the fans were expecting) of the original masterpiece. Let's not forget at this juncture - Young is Canadian, so it's a bit risqué, as he's hopping mad at his adopted country. Then to confuse matters even more there's two studio drop-ins of Living With War, called 'Theme', recorded in Honolulu Hawaii, of all places. Nash's Military Madness is a catchy enough a tune about how war fever washes over societies, though it sounds a bit shambolic at times. After Young's Let's Impeach The President, the band are cheered and booed, and Young's repost is, "Thank you. Freedom of speech!" Shock And Awe (Young) is a dramatic and imposing grunge rocker, and worked well by all. Stills and Crosby's Wooden Ships was written on a boat in Florida in the late 60s, about the Vietnam war and the USA- Soviet Cold War, and again it turns out fine, except for some dodgy collective attempt at harmonies, though the guitar solo is very impressive. The big downside is the dire Roger And Out, by Young. Saving the day, thankfully, Stills' Buffalo Springfield 1967 anti-Vietnam anthem For What It's Worth, sounds as great as ever, with added up-to-date grunginess, is brilliant. The undoubted highlight is from Déjà Vu - Teach Your Children Well - is well worth the wait, and the quartet finally show an outstanding vocal technique not found anywhere here, even if its lost its lush country gorgeousness, and that wonderful pedal steel guitar.

File under : Mostly disappointing.

Elly Roberts