Neil Young and Stephen Stills Team Up for Classics at Autism Benefit

Comes a time when even Neil Young is going to set foot on a stage again after the pandemic, and the recently gig-shy legend turned in his first substantial live performance in almost four years Saturday night at a benefit concert at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. Young shared much of his time on stage with Stephen Stills, in a show that relied so much on material from their first run as fellow band members in the 1960s, it almost amounted to a true “Buffalo Springfield revisited” show.

The two longtime cohorts’ appearances apart and in tandem would have been draw enough to fill the Greek Saturday for the “Autism Speaks Light Up the Blues 6 Concert,” a sixth edition of the recurring autism benefits hosted by Stills and his wife Kristen, this one postponed by three years from its original spring 2020 date. But there was plenty of star power besides, including sets by Willie Nelson, making a brief but impactful appearance in advance of his 90th birthday celebration next weekend at the Hollywood Bowl, and Joe Walsh, who ensured that Stills and Young did not have the guitar heroism to themselves.

Others rounding out the four-hour show included Lukas Nelson + Promise of the Real, Chris Stills, Sharon Van Etten and three performers who are on the autism spectrum: rapper Rio “Soulshocka” Wyles, opera singer Amanda Anderson and singer-songwriter Will Breman. Jeff Garlin, Amanda Kloots and Camryn Manheim traded off on hosting duties.

In attendance at the show, although he did not perform, was another one of the great contemporaries of Stills and Young: Paul McCartney, watching from the front section in a black mask.

Nelson, recently announced as an addition to the show and joined by son Lukas and Micah, performed just a single medley — of “Night Life,” “Crazy” and “Funny How Time Slips Away” — though it left few customers wanting. Speaking of crazy, it was a little bit insane how, on a bill that included Young, Stills and Walsh, it may have been Nelson, just a week out from turning 90, who provided the hardest-rocking guitar soloing of the night, on his trusty Trigger, as seen in the video clip below.

The lengthy resumption of the Stills-Young Band and/or half of CSNY or Buffalo Springfield ended the night with a veritable fireworks show. But an emotional peak for many might have come earlier in the evening, in a tribute to David Crosby that had a taped message from the currently touring Graham Nash (“David was my best friend for almost 50 years,” he said) followed by a live rendition of “Wooden Ships” that was an all-in-the-family affair. Or all-in-several-families, anyway. Trading lead vocals on that Crosby, Stills & Nash classic (co-written by Crosby and Stills with Paul Kantner) were Stephen Stills, his son Chris Stills and recent Crosby collaborator Steve Postell, while Crosby’s son, James Raymond, played keyboards.

It wasn’t clear whether or not Stills was done singing for the night after “Wooden Ships,” or done playing lead guitar for the evening as he joined Walsh on “Rocky Mountain Way” prior to a short intermission. After the break, Nelson did his medley with sons Lukas and Micah for accompaniment, and then Young took to the stage for the climactic segment, initially in solo guise, performing “From Hank to Hendrix,” “Comes a Time” and “Heart of Gold” on his own.

Then it became apparent that Stills had not retired for the night, as he played piano accompaniment for Young on “Helpless,” a la the original “Deja Vu” CSNY recording. From then on, though, it was nearly all Buffalo Springfield material, up until the inevitable closer, “Long May You Run,” from the singular Stills-Young Band album of that name.

Young did leave the stage once for an intermission in what otherwise amounted to his set, leaving Stills to be the sole frontman on his solo hit “Love the One You’re With” and CSN’s “Helplessly Hoping,” with Walsh reemerging to make sure Stills didn’t get too lonesome without a twin-lead-guitar teammate in Young’s absence.

The five Buffalo Springfield songs that were resurrected on either side of that interim were “For What It’s Worth,” “Bluebird,” “Mr. Soul,” “On the Way Home” and “Everybody’s Wrong.” That last number counted as a deep track, previously unplayed publicly by any of the members apart from a handful of dates on the brief and abortive Springfield reunion tour of 2011. Stills performed this one on banjo, and on no one’s part would anyone accuse this particular rendering of being… overly rehearsed. The cognoscenti in the audience were nonetheless thrilled.

Young got a great quip in afterward, as he seemed to acknowledge the imperfections laden within that rare performance. He cracked a joke about how AI is now able to create his lyrics before he has a chance to think them up. “I come from another place,” Young said. “If I were a robot, that never would’ve happened, OK?” And then, he quietly murmured, “Remember what you’re missing.”

On the blue carpet at the Greek prior to the concert, a few of the performers spoke about what the evening meant.

Stephen Stills said that after a three-year wait to put on the event, “everybody is a little rustier — but more excited about being out, though. A lot of people are performing for the first time in three years. I’ve had a couple of chances to get out and get my feet wet, but it’s very fresh. Neil came in last night just to practice, and it was so compelling. Everybody stopped just to watch him — you know, all of us guys, and we’re cynics.”

Stills predicted that “there’ll be more tears tonight. We’ve got tissue boxes all around” — but not just because of the tribute to Crosby he was participating in, but also the performances and speeches from the autistic performers and presenters.

Amanda Kloots, of “The Talk,” said she plays tennis with Kristen Stills and was invited to co-host through that connection. She described herself as a huge CSN fan, especially of the song “Our House.” But the song by one of the evening’s performers that means the most to her, she noted, is Lukas Nelson’s “A Few Stars Apart.” “You know, it’s about somebody up in heaven and somebody on earth, and so that relates to me a lot,” explained Kloots, who lost her husband, Nick Cordero, to COVID. Nelson didn’t sing that song Saturday, but he did perform another emotional tune with nearly the same theme, about losing a loved one, “Set Me Down on a Cloud.”

Of the “Wooden Ships” performance, James Raymond said, “Stephen wanted to honor David with a moment tonight, and he chose the song because I think it’s one of his favorites that David wrote, and I know when I played with CSN, it was one of their favorite songs in the set. So it’s a good one to honor his memory.”

Raymond had been set to play and sing in Crosby’s band for a Santa Barbara comeback show in February and likely subsequent tour when his father suddenly died. “We were working right up until the day he died on getting ready for that show,” Stills said. “I was really excited about it. We were gonna go on from there and maybe do some touring… He was kind of coming out of retirement, you know, to do that show. It’s a shame we didn’t get to do it.” But, Raymond noted, there are plans to reassemble the musicians and do the show that was planned for Santa Barbara in late summer.

Postell, who was intimately involved with Crosby in putting together what would have been that show at the Lobero in Santa Barbara, confirmed plans to carry the idea forward in a few months, in honor of his fallen comrade — “same band, same set list, with guest artists.”

Of Saturday night’s performance, in which he sat in with most of the performers, Postell said, “This is an iconic venue, and we look out and think of all the music that’s been made here… and also I have a real feeling, after Crosby died, and now I’m playing (‘Wooden Ships’) with Stephen and singing what Crosby was going to sing… and then to see Neil and the amps and the crew guys… I just had a real pang,” he said. “It’s so beautiful. And (in the future) you’re never gonna look at amps again and go, ‘Oh my God, Neil played that on “Harvest”‘… I just have a real strong feeling of being lucky to be a part of it and see it, because I think that we’re toward the end of what was a renaissance.”

Even if Young was speaking half in jest with his humans-vs-AI remarks, the sentiment “Remember what you’re missing” applies, especially to a Greek Theatre audience that isn’t, and won’t be, forgetting.