The early autumn of 1974 saw a gathering of fans of what later contributed a slice of the pie known as Americana. The occasion: an all-star concert at London’s Wembley Stadium (the old one) featuring Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Joni Mitchell, The Band and Jesse Colin Young. The gig came at the end of a run of CSN&Y stadium shows around North America, which had raised the bar for the amount of money to be made from live performances and followed from a similar run by Bob Dylan and The Band.
Although CSN&Y were raking in the dollars at the box office, they hadn’t produced any new songs as a band since the selection on Four Way Street recorded at shows in 1970 and hadn’t put out a studio record since Déjà Vu that same year. Meanwhile, the individual members were pursuing their solo careers. In 1974, the hot album was Neil Young’s On the Beach, which expressed a lot of Young’s disillusionment with the laid-back Southern Californian music scene with songs such as Revolution Blues and Ambulance Blues. We were looking forward to hearing songs from that album in the set, but we didn’t get any; instead, Young included several brand-new songs. A good indicator for seeing Young later in life.
The band, supplemented by Tim Drummond on bass, Russ Kunkel on drums and Joe Lala on percussion, turned in a magnificent 3-and-a-half-hour set which, On the Beach aside, ticked pretty much every box we could have expected. There were two electric sets, which sandwiched a series of acoustic songs. Sometimes the artists played solo, sometimes they accompanied one another, and sometimes they played as a full band.
The sounds filled out the cavernous stadium. As it grew dark, Young stepped out front and unleashed the iconic riff at the centre of his classic Don’t Be Denied, which had been the standout of the previous year’s Time Fades Away. Drummond’s bass anchors the rhythm while Kunkel slaps the time. Young launches his autobiographical tale with “when I was a young boy”. Stills emerges for the second verse on guitar while Crosby and Nash appear for the second chorus. With the additional instrumentation, the power of the song builds, and eventually the band are joined by Joni Mitchell on backing vocals.
The riff and the chorus echoed through the rafters of Wembley as the evening chill fell. For many, this was a treasured memory of a fantastic day out. In 2012, CSNY put out a box set of audio and video from the 1974 tour. It included some video content from Wembley, where the whole set had been pro shot. The concert footage had been available for some time as a DVD of “indeterminate origin”. Why they didn’t release it with the box is a mystery.
For now, take a trip back in time to one of the great shows to grace a London stage.
