Live Rust
Mere months passed between the release of Neil Young's mid-career milestoneRust Never Sleepsand this 1979 tour recording, which documents a late-'78 San Francisco performance. Indeed,Live Rustboasts four songs from the album that gave it its name. It's also sequenced in the same spirit as its studio sibling. As withRust Never Sleeps,Live Rustopens with steady-flowing acoustic numbers before swirling into an electric vortex. What was side 4 off the original two-record version--"Like a Hurricane," "Hey, Hey, My, My," and "Tonight's the Night"--is arguably Young and Crazy Horse at their peak as a live unit, with all due respect to 1991's estimableWeldand 1997's desultoryYear of the Horse. Few rock bands rank with Young and his stalwart electric trio, andLive Rustpresents them in all their raging glory.--Steven Stolder