NEIL YOUNG - ‘Coastal’ Film review

‘Coastal’ documents an acoustic tour around Californian undertaken by Neil Young in 2023. Providing a mix of live concert and behind the scenes footage mostly shot on his tour bus, it also provides a rare and intimate insight into one of rock’s longest-standing and some might say cantankerous troubadours.

Opening slowly, the documentary starts on his vintage tour bus with Neil Young sitting up front on a passenger seat across the aisle from his driver, Don, talking simply about life. Leaning back, and what looked like without a seatbelt and with his feet on the dashboard as the tour bus drove down the freeway did for a moment make me think of the tragic loss of Cliff Burton.

Shot in black and white by his wife, Daryl Hannah, the movie uses a number of fixed camera angles around the tour bus with the one at the front in the corner of the bus at dashboard level putting Don in the foreground with Neil to his side - not your usual star as the focus of everything approach. The conversation was a little mundane at the start and the documentary a little slow to drag you in, but touring’s not all about sex and drugs.

Accompanying Neil on the bus were Daryl, Ben (his adult son who is quadriplegic with severe cerebral palsy and who goes everywhere with him including tours, award ceremonies etc) and their two dogs.

The first gig to feature was at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, a 12,000 seat outdoors venue in which much of the stage had to be covered temporarily in gazebos to protect the instruments and stage equipment from the heat of the sun during sound check. As the time of the gig approached we saw his human side, as Neil felt nervous about performing for the first time in four years due to the pandemic. However, any pre-shoe nerves didn’t affect his performance.

As solo gigs, Neil accompanied himself on harmonica, acoustic 6 and 12 string guitars, his customised Les Paul with Bigsby tailpiece and tremolo arm, different pianos and a wonderful pipe organ which he thought he might have picked up in a pawn store, but his memory and drugs at the time may have let him down in remembering. The only additional accompaniment was on some occasional percussion and piano.

Those attending were warned by him during the show that this was a “no hits” tour and instead he’d be pulling rarely played songs from his vast back catalogue.

Highlights for me included - ‘Vampire Blues’ which despite being played solo was much louder and rawer here than on ‘On the Beach’ (1974), as Neil strapped on his Les Paul and delivered some wonderful distortion while not losing the melody; ‘Don’t Forget Love’ from the more recent ‘Barn’ an album released two weeks before Christmas in 2021, which leapfrogged what had come before it and became my album of the year; ‘Prime of Life’ from ‘Sleeps with Angels’; and the beautiful piano ballad ‘When I Hold You in My Arms’. His time in Buffalo Springfield was also marked with the inclusion of ‘Expecting to Fly’.

The stage for each show also featured a large guage train set which regularly puffed its way around the stage - probably not surprising if you’re aware of Neil’s passion for toy trains which was reawakened when Ben was small.

As an artist, his music has spanned folk, rock and Americana, and there are few who can be compared with him. Yes, he’s slowing down. He was 76 when this was shot, but he’s still got it. While some who don’t like his music may find his voice a bit whiny, to others it’s angelic and in the cinema with surround sound his vocals were crystal clear. While well-known for his gentler work, it’s also not for nothing that he is also known as the Godfather of Grunge marrying loud distortion with beautiful melodies … and we also have him to thank for providing the muse for one of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s greatest songs.

As the songs progressed, there was also something magical and gunslinger-like watching him play piano with his Les Paul slung over his back and then swinging it around mid-song to play an electric guitar break.

Finally, this wouldn’t be a proper review if I didn’t mention ‘Love Earth’, an album track from his last album with Crazy Horse (2022’s ‘World Record’). Played live, this had a similar effect to hearing ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ from the ‘Life of Brian’ and not being able to get the sing-song melody out of your head. Also based on a deceptively simple sing-song melody, Neil encouraged his audience to sing just two words (not hard to remember) - “Love Earth” after almost every line of the song. It’s still going through my mind and I’m still walking around singing “Love Earth” four days later. A simple message in line with his Hippie Dream and it’s hard not to smile at him raising his middle finger as the tour bus passes the Big Oil rigs off the Californian Coast on the way to his next gig.

Not for everyone, but personally I loved it. But as a one-time only screening which created more of a communal and shared experience for like-minded fans than more normal trips to the movies, you’ll have to wait for this to be released in other forms. The songs from ‘Coastal’ are also available on CD or for download and, as with the rest of his catalogue, will not be available on Spotify.

GMcA