Neil Young #1

We had nosebleed seats at the United Center.

Los Lobos started and sounded like soup. Not surprising, three guitars and an organ will do that. But I realized it wasn’t where I wanted to be.

I told V we should go to the floor. The security guys were young. I looked the first guy in the eye as we passed and brushed past the second usher from the side. I pretended I didn’t feel him try to grab me, and my wife acted like she was trying to catch up. We don’t usually do things like that.

Los Lobos was good. Great bar band, in an arena. It’s fun to watch David Hildalgo play guitar.

Crazy Horse was…I don’t know, “good” doesn’t cut it.

That stuff is embedded in me. So much of my own feelings and thoughts are in that music.

It should be odd to have such a visceral connection to what someone else does.

It’s like being bathed by someone who loves you. How isn’t that awkward? It just isn’t.

You don’t parse a bath, but the last run of four songs was amazing, catalog sounding new. But the best things were Ramada Inn and Walk Like a Giant, literally new. The chorus of Ramada Inn has been on a loop in my head since I woke up.

In addition to being moved, to feeling there was just an awful lot being GOT, I had a whirligig of thoughts in my head. “Oh shit, they still totally have it. It is all there. Why am I about to cry? He’s fucking getting old. But he’s a different person when he’s up there. Maybe he can just stay up there forever.”

That’s what Bob Dylan’s trying to do. It won’t work. But oh I get it, I get it 100%.

I hope the guy never dies. I know he will. That might be the last time I see them. I want to follow them around the country right now.