The third film in a trilogy, directed with dark beauty by noted film maker
Jonathan Demme, Neil Young's Journeys is a loud, atmospheric cauldron of
muted distortion, amplified and accented by Young's passionate persona.
Unlike the golden tones of 2006's Heart Of Gold, or the plain, direct
framing of thier second collaboration, 2009's Trunk Show, Journeys
displays a much starker, heavier tone- a solemn reverie of time and place.
Young's guitar may contain it's nastiest tone here, the over all sound
thuds and scrapes and wails, filling up Toronto's Massey Hall (and the
theater) entirely. In between the sonic bloodletting, Young takes us on a
small tour through his hometown of Omemee, Ontario- the place from which
many of his earliest songs grew. It is the "town in North Ontario" he
sings about in 1970's Helpless. It is a beautiful, quiet place. A sleepy
town. Young, his brother Bob in tow, details the landscape from which he
sprang- the backwoods brush he would camp out in, to be near his chickens;
the school named after his father- a famous Canadian writer, and the hall
where his father performed as the only white man in a minstrel show. A
black and white photo of little Neil, in full cowboy gear, appears. One of
Young's funniest childhood tales is when he was convinced by another boy
that eating tar off the road was a good thing, that it eventually turns
into chocolate.
The music contained within is amazing in how Young has captured his
essence as an artist and emotional being after 40 some odd years of doing
this. Young's ability in fully possessing the moment, sans knee jerk
professionalism, is a great tale to tell. With just Neil and his tricked
out electric guitar- both hollow and solid body- he proceeds to pour his
soul into the songs, attending to all that have made classics such as
"Ohio'" "Hey Hey (My My)," and "After The Goldrush" soar, yet funneling
them through an updated approach that stays in the moment, simultaneously
creating a new vibe for future listeners to have and to hold. The newer
material, much of it holding weight against the more familiar, is
apocalyptic in tone, spiritual in execution, earthy in delivery. A song
like "Peaceful Valley Boulevard" is as incendiary as a known entity such
as "Down By The River," even when the feel comes on much more subtle. In
Journeys, Young proves he still has a musical curiosity that can draw you
inwards- into his darkest shadows, into the heart of his very best
expressions.
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