Crosby Stills Nash and Young: Déjà Vu Live

Elly Roberts reviews

Crosby Stills Nash and Young: Déjà Vu LiveDistributed by
Reprise/Warner Bros

• Released: July 2008
• Rating: 4/10
• Vote and comment on this album:View Comments

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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 spoton the US Billboard chart, spawning three Top 40 singles – Teach Your Children, Our Houseand Woodstock. Mystifyingly, Young didn’t appear on all of the tracks backthen.

Young added more edge to the proceedings with a volatile element, counter weightinghis band mates more direct philosophy thus becoming favourites with the WoodstockNation. They succeeded also, because of some individual backgrounds in short-livedBuffalo Springfield and The Byrds, becoming one of America’s first super groups,adopting a mix of country and rock flavours, apparently taking in the regionof 800 hours to complete, quite believable considering the attention to detail.

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Enough of the original. How, after decades apart, would this temperamental bunchfare? Well, anyone expecting a track-by-track run through of the original arein 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’snothing 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 wasexpecting what it ’ says on the tin’. Instead, it appears it was actually agig from their controversial Freedom Of Speech 2006 North America tour, withthe 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 hisanger, 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’stwo studio drop-ins of Living With War, called ‘Theme’, recordedin Honolulu Hawaii, of all places.

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Nash’s Military Madness is a catchy enough a tune about how war feverwashes over societies, though it sounds a bit shambolic at times. After Young’sLet’s Impeach The President, the band are cheered and booed, andYoung’s repost is, “Thank you. Freedom of speech!”

Shock And Awe (Young) is a dramatic and imposing grunge rocker, and workedwell by all. Stills and Crosby’s Wooden Ships was written on a boat inFlorida 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. Theundoubted highlight is from Déjà Vu – Teach Your Children Well – is wellworth the wait, and the quartet finally show an outstanding vocal techniquenot found anywhere here, even if its lost its lush country gorgeousness, andthat wonderful pedal steel guitar.

File under : Mostly disappointing.

Weblink:csny.com

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The full list of tracks included are :

1. What Are Their Names
2. Living With War (Theme)
3. After The Garden
4. Military Madness
5. Let’s Impeach The President
6. Déjà Vu
7. Shock And Awe
8. Families
9. Wooden Ships
10. Looking For A Leader
11. For What It’s Worth
12. Living With War
13. Roger And Out
14. Find The Cost Of Freedom
15. Teach Your Children
16. Living With War (Theme)View the discussion thread.blog comments powered by Disqus= 0) {query += ‘url’ + i + ‘=’ + encodeURIComponent(links[i].href) + ‘&’;}}document.write(”);})();//]]]]>]]>

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