At 67, Neil Young still performs with the youthful exuberance that his surname might imply, galvanizing legions of fans of varied ages who showed up for a Superstorm Sandy benefit show at the Borgata Event Center Thursday evening, Dec. 6. All proceeds from the event were donated to the American Red Cross.
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — At 67, Neil Young still performs with the youthful exuberance that his surname might imply, galvanizing legions of fans of varied ages who showed up for a Superstorm Sandy benefit show at the Borgata Event Center Thursday evening, Dec. 6. All proceeds from the event were donated to the American Red Cross. It was reported that the show generated about $250,000 in Red Cross contributions.
To see a photo gallery of the event, click here.
Billed as “A Special Evening With Neil Young & Crazy Horse,” Phish frontman Trey Anastasio (below) opened the show with a 10-song, hour-long acoustic set. The 48-year-old Texas-born Anastasio lived most of his youth in New Jersey, and long considered Young one of his musical idols. He mentioned between songs having seen Neil Young and Crazy Horse perform only once, in France, and called it an enlightening experience he’ll never forget. Anastasio played several Phish classics and two from his latest solo album Traveler — “Architect” and “Let Me Lie.” 
Generally a tiered-seating venue for concerts, the Event Center was converted to a general admission, standing-room-only venue, with the more pricey of two ticket sales ($75 and $150) giving holders VIP treatment that included a cordoned off section in front of the stage. In a Dec. 4 interview with the Wall Street Journal (wsj.com), Young said that he was initially invited to be part of a larger Sandy benefit in New York City, but wanted to come to Atlantic City instead.
“I saw that [the NYC benefit] was a star-studded television evening, and I realized that I was just a drop in the bucket,” Young said. “There was already enough star power at that thing to do whatever it could do. Adding me would not make any difference. But I did think that if I went down and had a performance where the damage was, that would be a different approach and whatever I was able to add, I could add. If people want to come and see us, they can come right down to the scene and they can see what's left of the Boardwalk [making light of the fact that the Atlantic City Boardwalk was reported to have been wiped out by Sandy, but rather is very much intact.]
“This is vacation city,” he added. “This is where people go to have a good time. This is a reward for the fruits of our labor. People work and they take a couple of weeks off, and they bring their families down there. It got pretty severely trashed. So it means a lot.”
Trey Anastasio’s set list:
Back on the Train, Let Me Lie, Wolfman’s Brother, Theme from the Bottom, Water in the Sky, Sample in a Jar, Brian and Robert, Architect, Chalk Dust Torture, Backwards Down the Number Line
The proceeds from the Atlantic City show — tickets ($75 and $150) go on sale Nov. 30 at 10am — are going to aid victims of Superstorm/Hurricane Sandy.
For once, horses weren’t the center of attention. Instead, it would be a day for music and politics.
As purveyors of some of the most poignant songs of the rock era, it would seem that David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash were working from an agenda when they were turning out their counterculture messages more than 40 years ago.
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