Customer Reviews

Dreamin' Man Live '92

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4 star:		(8)
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One disc 55 minutes in length approximately. The sound is uniformly good,especially considering that these tracks were recorded at different venues.

By now most Neil Young listeners are well acquainted with (if you're not-give it a listen) the album "Harvest Moon",released in 1992. For that recording Young utilized the wonderful musicians who came to be known as "The Stray Gators". This new album "Dreamin' Man Live '92",is composed of all the songs from that album. The key difference is that this new release is a solo acoustic collection of those tracks,recorded at various venues,also in 1992. On this album Young makes use of,besides guitar,his banjo and harmonica,and piano,to add color to his songs.

The overall theme of "Harvest Moon" was a look at times past. Young was taking stock of areas and eras (love,friendship,the environment) affecting his life. With this new album,these songs take on even more of a poignant feel. With no instrumentation except his own guitar (etc.) and voice,Young has imbued these songs with a starker,more immediate feel. The honesty and longing found in these songs is even more apparent in a solo setting. From tracks like "Harvest Moon",to "One Of These Days",to "Natural Beauty",among others,Young was concerned with the passage of time and events that related to his life.

"Harvest Moon" was a good example of Young's heart-felt writings. And now,finally,we can enjoy these songs in a beautiful,"bare-bones" setting,recorded in the same year as the originally released studio album. With Young's guitar,and other instruments filling in the holes or emphasizing a particular lyric,this album will draw you in from the beginning. Never mind that its not a "complete concert",the strength of these tracks speaks for themselves. This is a look back in time with yet another fine release from Neil Young's archive. More please.

The Performance Series releases for the most part have been my favourite part of Neil's archives project. They have ranged from good to essential in my view, Massey Hall being the best and most essential and Dreamin' Man the least for me. What made Massey Hall special was it was a complete performance and the unreleased tracks and stripped down versions of tracks like Down by the River made it an essential purchase.
Don't get me wrong there is some fantastic performances on this release, Dreamin' Man, Such a Woman and War of Man especially shine in this stripped down format.
The problem for me is what's not here! By limiting the concept of this release to ONLY tracks from the Harvest Moon album, performances of which have been chosen from the whole of 1992's year long solo tour, we miss out on hearing unreleased gems like.

Hitchhiker
Love Art Blues
Homefires

all of which were performed and recorded and the inclusion of any of the above would have made this an essential purchase.

Plus.... Silver and Gold was played every night of the first solo tour, solo acoustic versions of Tonight's the Night, Powderfinger, This Notes for You, Cripple Creek Ferry etc etc, where also performed on this tour. So it is more the concept of the release I have an issue with, as opposed to the performances which are fantastic and well worth hearing.
The sound quality is just outstanding especially if your CD player can decode HDCD and the cover art is lovely. I love Neil's vocal quality from the early 90's, really suits the reflective tone of the material from that era.
I look forward to the next Archives release, they are really coming thick and fast now. I recommend something from the Blue Note era or Tonights the Night tour Neil if your reading.

Neil Young is one of the most creative and unpredictable artists in history, and his dedication to the creative muse has always been his first priority. His commitment to his craft is not only commendable but important; for him and for his fans as well. Rarely does a Neil Young release arrive without some sort of knee jerk reaction from some of his fan base, and Dreamin' Man is no exception. Here we have a beautifully stripped down version of Harvest Moon performed live before anyone in the audience had heard the album. I was fortunate enough to have seen this tour with some friends, and I remember some of them were disappointed by the lack of older material, yet I felt the complete opposite. For me, the idea of hearing brand new songs, for the first time live was just amazing. After Harvest Moon was released, my friends understood my point, and I felt a kinship with those who were also lucky enough to be at Massey Hall hearing Harvest for the first time back in 1971.
Dreamin' Man is an opportunity to share a unique experience of discovery, and to hear songs in their infancy. Honest, reflective, and insightful, Neil delivers some of his most personal songwriting with exceptional grace. Each song takes you on a journey into middle age; One Of These Days, From Hank To Hendrix, Such a Woman, and You and Me. Neil sings of his relationships; both lost and found. Natural Beauty, and War of Man, two of Neil's most powerful observations on the plight of the earth are both master works, and more powerful here in their solo versions than on Harvest Moon. He writes a song for an old hound dog with as much love and affection as he would for anyone else in his life. This is a remarkable opportunity to hear great songwriting in a live setting, and I give it my highest recommendation. As with all the past releases on the Performance Series recordings, the sound quality is perfect, and the packaging is identical to the others in the series.

From acoustic folk and country to deafening rock with the Horse, I love everything Neil does. Even some of the downright hideous stuff he occassionally puts out I find interesting and to contain some merit. And so not shockingly, I enjoy this one, too.

Coming on the heels of his Ragged Glory tour in the early 90's and being newly christened the "Godfather of Grunge," Neil did exactly the opposite of what everyone expected him to do. Instead of strapping on Old Black for another grunge-era classic like Ragged Glory, he did a quiet, reflective album of acoustic love songs and wistful ballads. Evoking memories of Harvest twenty years earlier, Neil assembled many of the same musicians and tried to recapture that feeling from two decades past. Indeed, "You and Me" was a song fragment Neil had since the early 70's that he didn't complete until Harvest Moon came about.

This collection is simply stunning. I was wary of him putting together a collection of these songs from different shows rather than just one concert, but it works well. Some of the songs were already bare-bones and didn't benefit much from this showcase, but others, like "Harvest Moon," "From Hank to Hendrix," and "War of Man" really sparkle in this setting. Fans of his quieter music should really enjoy this latest offering from the Archives.

I took my mother to one of the concerts on this tour in '92, which is how I got into Neil Young. I ended up with a couple of bootlegs of the tour well before Harvest Moon actually came out. When it did, while I enjoyed the album, I longed for the more stripped-down live performances. Particularly, one of my favorite songs was "Dreamin' Man", but the album version didn't work for me -- the backing vocals were very cheesy.

I also don't worry about the material that isn't on this from the '92 tour (Hitchhiker and Silver and Gold were particularly good on the tour, the later being another example where the extra production on the album detracted from the beauty of the song). Let's see what ends up in the archives, when he gets to this period.

Even with the minimal production on the original Harvest Moon album, I think the production just distracts from the brilliant songs. With this release, I feel that Neil has corrected his mistakes, making a brilliant album even better.

I love all those dudes. Dylan, Waits, Wainwright, Drake, Cohen, Parsons, Springsteen, Buckley, Newman, Morrison, Stills, Stevens, Donovan, Thompson, Nilsson, Simon, Prine - all those folk-infected 60s- and 70s-era songwriters. Townes Van Zandt is my king and I even quite like early records from James Taylor and Jimmy Buffett. But, of all those huge, influential talents, one has always stood head and shoulders above the rest for me. He's the man I go to in my darkest hour, when I'm broke, fired, failed, dumped, ugly and hopeless. He's Neil Percival Young, and the sweet vulnerability and sincerity of his voice and writing has, more times than I care to admit, been my saving grace. My brother. My dad. My best friend.

And so I've long made a point to try to buy all his albums. This was never a problem until recently. In the past four or so years, since starting his Neil Young Archives Performance Series, I've had to cut back, as the man has just been releasing far too many discs for my wallet to handle. Just last year, for example, he released an epically expensive box set that I'll never be able to afford. He's been releasing at least one archival live album per year and only months ago reissued his first four studio albums (which, by the way, are worth the investment). All this while still releasing a new studio album ever 18 or so months. I love ya, Neil, but damn, how many generations of kin do you hope to spoil?

So when I first saw Dreamin' Man: Live `92 in stores I wasn't surprised - the flood continues. The record saw little-to-no press coverage and exactly zero of my friends (most of whom love Neil) have ever mentioned the record to me. People are burnt out on Neil right now; a shame, considering Dreamin' Man is one of the most worthwhile releases yet from Young's Archives Series. The '92 gives it away: Dreamin' Man is a live solo performance of Young's 1992 studio record, Harvest Moon.

Harvest Moon never grabbed me quite like Young's other quiet, twangy records, such as Harvest, After the Goldrush and Comes a Time. The record just didn't seem to feel as personal and emotional as those other classics and always felt weird sandwiched between Ragged Glory and Sleeps With Angels in the Young chronology. But now, with Dreamin' Man, I'm hearing the 10-song set with new ears. And it's beautiful. These songs, every last one of them, are worth getting to know. And I have. I've learned the core of these tunes through Dreamin' Man so much that now, when I put Harvest Moon on the player, I'm thrilled.

So, yes, Dreamin' Man: Live `92 is an at-first strange - and seemingly unnecessary - addition to the Young canon. But I'm glad it exists. It has the slow Sunday morning vibe of Comes a Time, almost feeling like a sequel to that record. And, damn, what a companion piece it will be for those who already love Harvest Moon. Great songs stripped to their core by one of the all-time masters of guitar-and-voice songwriting.

There are so many "Neils" that the true Young fan has stopped keeping track of them. You've got "Godfather of Grunge" Crazy Horse Neil, obviously...the laid-back "singer-songwriter" Neil of Harvest, Comes A Time and Harvest Moon fame...and until he started taking his "Archives" project seriously, the most under-represented "Neil" of the bunch as been "Solo Neil."

People who have heard 1970s Neil Young solo performances of electric songs like "The Loner" know that sometimes all it took was a guitar, a harmonica, a piano, and an audience. The Live at Massey Hall (CD/DVD) Archive release created a favorable buzz amon critics, and now we have "Dreamin' Man," the solo "Harvest Moon" performances.

I question...to a degree...the "stripped down" label many are placing on these songs, because "Harvest Moon" was pretty "stripped down" to begin with (even though it did feature full-band performances).

But Young has always had that one-on-one charisma with his audience...more here than, as an example, the drunken/stoned "contempt for the audience" shows that surrounded the "Tonight's The Night" album, or his "Rockabilly Neil" fiasco on Geffen.

This is just another Neil, but a compelling one, and the reason why the fans remain fans during all of the costume changes. Underneath that chameleon skin, a true artist's heart is still beating.

"Dreamin Man Live '92", would've been a better release instead of the studio Harvest Moon, this newborn live classic is an improvement without the background singers, studio production, Neil Young is more natural here, just an easier listen, accompanying himself with acoustic guitar, piano, harmonica, plus an admirable performance on the banjo about good 'ol "king", here within lies stirring echoes of Dock Boggs. Also present are the nine other well-known original compositions performed in the unique style and manner only Neil Young could vocalize..."Natural Beauty", what a great ten minute Young classic, be careful not to wear this disc out, it's an excellent companion to the 1971 "Massey Hall" and "Unplugged", if you like acoustic Young there's nothing finer than this compilation. Some of you may or may not disagree with my first comment about Harvest Moon, it is a good album, although some of the songs are over produced, strangely enough - just recently purchased "dreamin' man" and have already out played my old copy of Harvest Moon many times, just an observation.

This is bare bones Neil Young in his finest element. Neil, his Martin guitars and a microphone. It doesn't get any better than this. I wish he did a solo, acoustic version everytime he cut a new album. I personally prefer this style over the studio CD of Harvest Moon.

If you're like me and really dig the 60's folk scene, you'll love this CD.

I really love these versions. I buy every Neil Young album but a voice in the back of my head asked: Do you really need this album? Oh, yes I surely do. I find the sound quality and the mood of this album even more loveable than Harvest Moon. And the performces are even more emotional. The harmonica playing and the vocals are really superb. And not to forget: My wife can accepts this album: She hates Tom Waits' Glitter and Doom, for all the noise by the way. This is Neil Youngs feminine side at its very best.