Neil Young
Somewhere Under The Rainbow
★★★
The Ducks – High Flyin’
★★★★
WARNER. CD/LP
Two fabled bootleg double live sets offically released.
A London show performed just months after the grief-ridden Tonight’s The Night sessions, well-known bootleg Somewhere Under The Rainbow from November 5, 1973 gets an official release from the Young archive. The album session band – The Santa Monica Flyers – are chaotically ragged, and the crowd is politely confused, as nine of the 14 songs are from Tonight’s The Night, which infamously wouldn’t see the light of day for nearly two years. By 1977, Young was in a much better mood, and his occasional funtime band The Ducks (Young, Bob Mosley, Jeff Blackburn and Johnny Craviotto) would perform in bars throughout the summer, largely unannounced. Moby Grape and Blackburn songs play alongside sweet versions of Young’s Sail Away, Little Wing and Human Highway, while Mr Soul gets a turbo-charged outing halfway through CD2. As joyously together as …Rainbow is bleak, High Flyin’ is a highlight of the bootleg series so far.