Crazy German sees Crazy Horse & NY & Okta Logue

So I went to another concert of Neil Young & Crazy Horse (NY&CH hereafter) yesterday.  In Cologne.  There were no opening groups advertised and it said that it opened  at 8pm, so I assumed that’s when the main act would start.  We were on our seats at ~7:30 and at 7:45 the lights suddenly dimmed. ‘ Too early’ I heard. On stage walked 4 or 5 guys (kids I almost want to call them) and suddenly  the poster stretched across the stage made sense “Greetings from OKTA LOG” it said. 

  Darned! I had hoped to miss the pre-groups altogether.   When the lead singer said something to the audience in German he sounded shy and unsure of himself like a 16 year old.  Previous opening act for NY&CH had included Los Lobos, The Waterboys, Patty Smith, and other middle-to-heavy-weights.   I had never even heard of “Okta Log”. What a name!  Start trying to pronounce it; it’ll be useful soon  ;-)

Then they started to play. HOLY SHIP!  This sounds good.  Ah, maybe a one hit wonder. After their fourth or fifth and final song I did NOT want them to leave the stage (consider this in light of the upcoming main act ;-).  The almost fully packed LANXESS Arena seemed to like them as much as I did. ^th at The Luxor.  The Luxor is an old movie theatre with maybe 500 seats.  I’m actually shocked that show did not sell out while the NY&CH concert still was underway ;-(  Yesterday morning these guys were unknown; at midnight they had found their audience.  To whoever pulled the necessary strings: Well Done  ;-)  This kind of reminds me of the story when BAP (at the time a small Cologne band singing in Cologne dialect) somehow had managed to be an opening act for The Rolling Stones playing the Cologne Soccer Stadium. The were singing one of their songs in dialect to the Cologne crowd that is always VERY loyal to its city and its dialect.  The stadium was boiling. Apparently Mick Jagger asked the event manager: "What the F(& is GOING ON?"

Before he left, the lead singer announced that they were back in Cologne on December 4

The main act started with the usual song and the slightly annoying lab-coat Alchemists trying to unpack the speakers. 

  As in shows before (except for Dublin?), the 4 real magicians showed up and stood with their hands on their chests for the national anthem (The German one? The German one! ).

10 seconds after they took guitars and drumsticks in their hands I had a case of the goose bumps already.  They started right into the lovely sound-space&real space filling sawing/whimpering NY&CH sound.  While their guitars mightily weep!

During the concert in Dublin their rendition of ‘Walk like a giant’ mutated into a rendition of ‘noise art’, as my friend Seamus called it.  But the rhythm was still there and one could feel and hear the pain and effort of a prehistorical giant beast trying to get on its feet again.  That beast was in even more pain in Cologne. I loved it ;-)

A lot of people hated it.  Those were the people looking for the nice gentle Neil Young singing ‘Heart of Gold’ or ‘old man’.  Strangely enough, ‘heart of gold’ was played right after that (as an appeasement?) without even a short break for the audience to voice its approval or disapproval of the previous song by clapping or booing. But as in the concerts before, after the concert there was lots of vicious cursing of the old man for not singing the ‘nice’ old songs.  But these people probably also applauded the rendition of ‘Mr Soul’, without understanding the line “Is it strange I should change? I don’t know, why don’t you ask her!”.  I’m sure Jessica Simpson sings EXACTLY what the paying audience demands of her ;-)

I enjoyed this concert the most out of the 3 visited in the last 8 months and the band seemed to like it better too. A smiling Neil Young (!) thanking the audience at the end and the 4 encores instead of the usual 2 probably tell their own story as well.