Neil Young – The Boarding House Tapes 1978 Review

Watching the volatile reaction of Neil Young on seeing his bootleg records in a store will do little to stop listeners from buying. It will do even less to curb the rise of people streaming, listening, and copying what they can from the backlog. We cannot trust artists with their archives. Who knows what is hidden in there? Listeners have been prying the greatest hits, the deep cuts from the stage, out of the hands of artists across the globe for decades. Young and his performance at the Boarding House venue, as collected by the appropriately titled The Boarding House Tapes 1978, is a must-listen performance. Quality from not just the man on stage but the recording itself, a very fine line to be walked by bootlegs of the past. Lugging a tape recorder into the venue and getting a crisp recording of a full performance is no small feat.  

The Boarding House Tapes 1978 is of better quality than some official releases from the Neil Young Archives. But that is not the point. What this shows is that the passing fan can enjoy the fruits of an artist thanks to one person with that little extra pip of dedication. If it were not for them, we would not be hearing some gorgeous, stripped-back performances of Human Highway and Already One. Taken from a time when Young was drifting back into the roots of country and folk music, right before he would shift into the slim studio releases, the trimmed-down and terribly misled synth works. A performance of Comes a Time strips all that context, past and present, away. It is truly rewarding to hear any artist return to their roots, let alone Young and this countrified performance he gives in San Francisco. The Boarding House Tapes 1978 is a celebration of the fundamental value of Young as a performer.  

Birds and Cowgirl in the Sand provide some exceptional moments, too. The crowd sounds small enough to join Young on stage and still leave space for the band. Part of the charm of The Boarding House Tapes 1978 is that intimate occasion, the feeling that few are in the room. Granted, there were a lot more than a handful, but the clarity of Young’s performance, the quality of the audio, feel like an at-home recording where interference is kept to a minimum. A double bill of Down by the River and After the Gold Rush to close out the set proves, more than anything, the consistency Young could always return to as a live performer. Even now, when his studio work is scrubbed of strong ideas and an identity of its own, he performs well.  

Whether we hear Young in as intimate a setting as this again is yet to be seen. Coastal was meant to give us that, both on screen and on record, but neither was quite the satisfying, intimate performance listeners wanted. They were not as deep a change to his music as The Boarding House Tapes 1978 is. Part of the performance feels like a farewell to the established sound which had worked so well for him in the 1970s, but part of it is a rekindling of these acoustic beauties, the rarities which fans still clamour for. It is never easy to tell with Young. His frequent comments on land, on politics, on the fear that is raging through the world, remain relevant even now, though some of his instrumental choices do not. He is at his best when keeping it simple. Young embodies the one man and his guitar spirit.