Video: Neil Young with the Santa Monica Flyers – “Human Highway” (Live)
From Somewhere Under The Rainbow Bootleg Series, out April 14 on Reprise.
Looks like Neil put together a little video for one of the songs on his latest bootleg release. Somewhere Under The Rainbow is a live set with the Santa Monica Flyers (Nils Lofgren, Ben Keith, Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina) at the Rainbow Theater in London on November 5, 1973. Neil says, “The sound is like nothing else. The Flyers performance is mindless, free. These are the shows you get from being on the road for quite a while… Ralph’s drumming is unbelievable. Nils and Ben are on fire. Billy is great. What a trip!”
The first half of the concert featured a run through of the as yet unreleased Tonight’s the Night album (minus “Come on Baby Let’s Go Downtown” and “Lookout Joe”). And the second half featured another set of stoney bummers, including “Human Highway” which was originally recorded a few months before this performance, back in June with Crosby, Still and Nash. Neil scrapped that project and the song remained officially unreleased until he re-recorded it for 1978’s Comes A Time. “Why must people be so unkind?”
The 1973 CSNY version would ultimately see the light of day on Disc 1 of Neil’s Archives Volume II, as well as another CSNY version from 1976 on Disc 9. But this one here, an audience recording with all the quality and artifacts that implies, is solo and acoustic and is absolutely full of duende.