Neil Young's showing his irascible side again with CSNY: Deja Vu (sorry, I'm too lazy today to insert accent marks), in what seems to be a documentary not so much of the band as its fans during CSNY's 2006 tour, which was punctuated with political statements (to some of those fans' visible chagrin). The documentary implicitly poses a question I've wondered off and on for some time: What obligations do musicians have to the audience in a live concert? Must they play the hits? Must they be safe, sane, and sober? Must they keep their opinions to themselves?Increasingly I find the answers to be no, no, and no. If all you want is the pleasure of hearing songs, buy the CD and stay at home. If what you want is the community of fellow fans, invite people over or use the wonders of the Internet to socially commune. And if you're shocked - shocked! - that Neil Young doesn't care for the handling of the presidency or the war in Iraq and wants to say so, then you've had your head in the sand and you deserve the ignominy of having paid for a show you didn't like.
Seriously. When we buy a ticket to a show, we're paying for the privilege of seeing artists perform their craft. Art is movable, and so are artists. And if Neil Young's - and by extension, David Crosby's, Stephen Stills's, and Graham Nash's - approach to art involves offering pointed opinions within and between songs, then that's the show they have the right to put on. As Young himself explains in this CNN piece: "Just because I'm famous doesn't mean that I work for the audience. I'm not obligated to do anything. I'm an artist. I will do what I want to do. Whatever the consequences ... I certainly hope that it's a civilized reaction."
I hope the audiences' are as civilized a reaction as yours, Neil. I look forward to seeing your movie soon, and in the meantime will content myself with Lookin' for a Leader and the other astute songs from your Living With War album.
1 comment:
The same cognitive dissonance failed to affect large swaths of John Mellencamp's fans as they came in droves to see his show then booed en masse at this logical corollary to his populist message: he fucking hates this presidency.
It's the central problem in our nation's political culture (which used to be the only culture we really had going for us), and it's the strongest piece of leverage that that two-faced lying whore McCain has in the current election as well.
Post a Comment