Crosby Stills and Nash - Manchester Arena 12th October 2013

The day didn't pan out quite as planned. Graham Nash was meant to be doing a book signing on the day of the concert and this got changed to the day after. This meant I couldn't go, but to be fair, there's probably a good reason and it's not like I hadn't met him (and Crosby) before anyway. (Always willing to tell the tale of Dublin Airport, just ask ;-))

My gig buddy for this adventure was my best friend Ellie. We grabbed some food and swift pint and headed off to the Arena nice and early. It was quite lucky we did as the lady on the door scanned the ticket and told us we were being upgraded. We had cheap seats at the back of the lower part of the Arena, but all of those had been covered over and we were upgraded to a block closer to the stage. I'm assuming that it didn't sell out and we were moved so we weren't all sprawled out all over the place.

Opening with Carry On/Questions, it was so lovely to hear these guys singing. The harmonies are lovely, particularly from Graham and David with Stephen Stills adding a more edgy vocal lessening the softness. (But in a good way)

Military Madness followed and then came a bit of heckling from the audience, mostly aimed at Crosby not being loud enough. (The sound was perfectly fine, so I've no idea what they were on about.) One of the responses from the stage was simply to "listen louder!"  So we did!

Two more classics were followed by a Crosby and Nash tune called Lay Me Down.

The song that got the audience on their feet in appreciation down on the floor of the arena was Bluebird. I guess there was a few Buffalo Springfield fans in that night! Super version.

A trio of new songs followed this - Crosby's being the strongest (from an album due out in February) and Nash's being the weakest. It was still good, but I tend to find a lot of these nostalgia trip type songs sound the same to me.  Stills dedicated his to his wife as it was her birthday.

Before launching into a rather sublime Deja Vu, Crosby informed us that his role in the band was to "write the weird sh*t"

Stills then powered us into the interval will a full on audience participation version of Love The One Your With.

Part two brought us Helplessly Hoping and Just A Song Before I Go.

I am always in two minds about Guinnevere. A lot of the time I find myself skipping it, but then sometimes when I'm listening in the dark with the good headphones it becomes a song that I can get lost in.

Treetop Flyer sounded pretty awesome and obviously pleased the Stephen Stills fan in the audience.

A short interlude of What Are Their Names was followed by another new song called Burning For The Buddha about Tibetan monks setting fire to themselves in protest.

Ellie had to leave after this in order to catch her coach home. From this point on my time was limited too. It was getting late, I had a lift back and to leave them hanging around outside till the very end wouldn't have been very nice.  It was a bit hard to enjoy the last two song I was able to stay for as I was clock watching then. As the final notes of Our House died away I made for the door and headed home.

Sadly I missed some of the tunes I enjoy hearing live the most, which are the last three songs before the encore and I can only imagine that the audience fully appreciate For What It's Worth.

I hope I get another to chance to see them, for various reasons it had been twenty years since I saw them last.

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