My very first Neil Young show was in Stockholm, Sweden, on June 28, 1993, with Booker T. & The MGs. Neil had not performed in Sweden in over ten years, so the frontman of the support act said, in the end of one of their own songs, “I know you’ve been waiting for this a long time,” and then sang, still within their own song, “Tonight’s the night…” The front man of the support act was none less than Eddie Vedder, and the band was Pearl Jam.
After the last song in Neil’s regular set, a 25-30 minutes long, marvelous and levitating Down By the River, a loudspeaker in one of the PA stacks started to burn (it couldn’t take it anymore 🙂), and while a guy was up there putting the fire out with an extinguisher, Neil and the band returned to the stage for the first encore. When the extinguisher guy up in the PA spotted them, he made a very rapid decline.
For the second encore, Neil and the MGs walked out on stage again together with parts of Pearl Jam (at least Eddie Vedder, Stone Gossard, Mike McReady and maybe even Jeff Ament as a second bass player), and Neil said, “Last time I did this I did it ninety times in a row, so I think I’ll remember the lyrics” and then hit an E minor chord and an extraordinary Rockin’ in the Free World took off to the skies and beyond…
To this day, this show is the best I’ve ever seen. It was pure magic! Ooh la la! Oh yeah what a show!
