Keep Your Cell Phone In Your Pocket at Neil Young Shows

Earlier this month Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s Alchemy Tour visited Bridgeport, Connecticut where according to our friends at Thrasher’s Wheat the legendary rockers took offense to a member of the crowd constantly using their smartphone throughout the start of the show. The situation came to a head during Fuckin’ Up when Young cursed at, pointed at and mocked the fan.

[Young Mocking The Fan]

You can watch most of the situation in this vid…

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8jIEIboffM[/youtube]

A fan who was on hand wrote about how it all went down…

Here is the deal.

We were standing stage right at the front of the stage. The 2 women were texting on their iphones for a bunch of the show, one was doing it much more than the other. I was wearing my Hartford Whaler jersey and at one point I got the odd feeling that Neil was looking at the jersey so I held it up for him to see, he smiled and rolled his eyes and laughed, then he smirked and shrugged his head.

I was confused and also kinda thinking I may be halucinating this whole thing due to the atonal feedback that was coming out of the amps but, I was not. He continues to give me a look and then I realize the women in front of me and on the side are both texting with their heads down in their phones. He was annoyed.

Neil now drops what he is doing and walks towards her and just starts mocking her pretending to text and move images on his invisible smart phone. The mocking went on for seriously about a minute. Enough time for me to turn to my pal Chad and say he is messing with her, Chad agreed and said wholy $$$%%. I then took a few pics while this is going on.

I then leaned over to the women and said, Neil is talking to you. She ignored me and kept texting with her head down, 10 seconds later I said, “HEY, look up, Neil is talking to you”, she looked at him and he had this amazing fierce look while he still mocked her. He had both evil eyes right on her pupils and it was as the song was saying completely “Fuc*ed Up”.

She then realized what was happening, got pissed and mouthed to him “your a Fu%ken As$hole”. He did not respond but then walked over to the other guys and riffed vocally on the whole thing for about the next 7 minutes of the song. The woman kept turning to her friend saying, I called him a etc etc etc. Well, the song finally ends and Neil slyly grabs a big old glass bottle of fancy Voss water off the drum riser, walks in our direction and with quite the angry face (like that Johnny Cash face in that famous picture where he is flipping the bird) throws a big old fat stream of water right at her.

He actually hit a few friends of mine but did get some on his target. She turned to her friend and again said, “what a fu#ken As$hole” and they stormed outta there.

Neil looked over and was looking for his new pals, our eyes met again, I waved my thumb to say they had cleared out, he smiled. Yup, that happened. Here is a pic of the women texting while Neil was mocking her.

[via Thrasher’s Wheat]

Here are a few screen captures of the members of Crazy Horse during Fuckin’ Up…

Related Content

17 Responses

  1. Wow. Havent watched video yet, and I love Neil, but, at first blush, I think actually mocking a fan and changing show around in reaction to her on a phone, then throwing water at/on her, may be taking it a little too far.

    My initial reaction, thanks B.

  2. Funny thing is I bet that video was filmed with a smart phone too. I do hate when I see people obviously more interested in texts than being front row at a concert.

  3. On second thought, I am cool w/ the mocking too. I still think the actual throwing of water on patrons may be taking it too far, and probably should be reserved for people that light up swag or other major infractions.

    1. Wait, pour water on people lighting up “swag”? First of all, hell no and 2nd of all who says “swag”?

  4. I’m totally with Neil on this one. I for one am sick of having a phone thrust in front of my face so some jerk can get a poor quality clip to post on youtube. If you want to text and talk on your phone stay home, I came to see and listen to the band.

  5. Dec 30th, 2010..MGS I was lucky enough to be rail side for Phish. The dude next me was on his phone the whole time. I know Trey could see him.you can see it on the full video of the show. I can’t imagine what’s more important than being FRONT ROW rail at a phish concert. can you imagine what trey and mike are thinking if they see that?

  6. i agree with Neil here kinda… The cell phones at shows are getting a bit over board with people literally video taping the entire show with their iphone right in the way of the person behind them.

    NOW, on the other hand, as a writer and reviewer of live music I have to say that my phone is my number one tool while at shows for note takin(jsut to dark for paper and pen). People have actually commented to me while taking my notes during a show about “texting” and not paying attention. However, little do they know, I am paying more attention to every little detail than they could fathom…I never hold my phone up to the point that it would cause someones view to be blocked for more than 5 seconds to take a quick picture.

  7. I dont mind a pic or a text or 2 but i was at msg for nye lat year and these people were talking on the phone “what” “huh” “what” only peeps allowed to use the phone are peeps who help couch tour!

  8. Thank you Neil. This has been going on for 5-6 years and gets worse and worse all the time. I was at a Ratdog show outdoor show GA front and I swear to god for the first three songs 90% of the folks upfront weren’t grooving or dancing, or even watching the show. Finally it slowed down except for a few folks including guy next to me. Finally by the beggining of the 5th song I lost it on him… “Did you come here to take shitty sell phone pics or to watch .,listen and dance at a show. I mean you don’t need 300 pix of Bob Weir from one night (in only 2 songs.He got the message thank god and stopped. Leave your cell phones at home!!! If you need to take a pic or 2 I understand other than that put em away!!! Thank you and god bless Neil Young!

  9. Although I love Neil and can sympathize a little with this, my attitude is when you are charging an average of over 110 bucks a ticket, screw him. He should be more concerned with jacking up the price of tickets.

  10. She shouldn’t be texting all through a show on the rail no matter how much she paid for the ticket (Im sure someone bought it for her based on her behavior though…) She had ample opportunity to put the phone away and just slip into the shadows but instead opted to antagonize him. Well, Neil Young don’t play that, get your arse to a Ke$ha show.

  11. I don’t know, I guess I am in the minority. The irony of the incident being reported by cell phone video is funny. It’s a rock and roll show. People do stupid shit. Always been that way. Ignore her. Neil came off looking like a cranky old man to me.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

New to Glide

Keep up-to-date with Glide

Twitter