Oliver: Neil Young and Crazy Horse - Mansion on the Hill (Live) (9 November 1991)

What I know about Neil Young:

1) His presence in a renowned supergroup leading to the peculiar dichotomy that Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young sounds a worse name than Crosby, Stills and Nash, but that CSNY makes a better acronym than CSN.

2) I can never remember whether it's Young or America who wrote Horse With No Name.

3). His astonishing levels of productivity. 13 albums since the year 2000 and 2 in 2014 alone.

4). He's always on the cover of Uncut magazine. (Edit - I just bought Uncut's Review of 2014 issue, mainly because it contains a review of a reissue of an album by Ultramarine from 1991 which I will review here one day.  For the umpteenth time, it's cover star is Neil Young).

5). The opening track of his 2012 album, Psychedelic Pill is 27 minutes long.

6). He covered God Save The Queen (the anthem not the Sex Pistols song) on his other 2012 album, Americana.

7) He reduced Steve Lamacq to tears of frustration at the 1996 Phoenix Festival.
"Neil Young is on stage.  Neil Young has been on stage for what feels like three weeks.  For the past two days he's been doing Like a Hurricane.  We can't go till he's finished.  I'm lying on the floor backstage by the BBC truck, pounding the ground with my fists. 'For the love of God, somebody stop him!'"  (Steve Lamacq - Going Deaf For a Living.  BBC Worldwide, 2000)

In 1991, Young  released a triple album called Arc/Weld.  Arc was the name given to one of  the discs which featured a 34 minute composition of the same name.  Weld comprised 2 discs of live concert material comprising older material such as the aforementioned Like a Hurricane with material from his most recent studio album, Ragged Glory, released the previous year.  Mansion on the Hill was one of those numbers and you will be relieved to hear clocks in at somewhere around 5 minutes, so relax.  Rocks like a bastard in the meantime though.  A few weeks before broadcasting Mansion on the Hill on his show, Peel said of  Young:

What I like about him is that you feel he can hear certain noises in his head that he knows are somewhere in that guitar and by God he's going to get them out of it if it kills him."

 It's the search for those noises that makes Mansion on the Hill such a good listen.  The video comes from 2009 and is shot from crowd level but it's done well enough to make you not only feel you were there but wish you were too.

For more information about Peel's enjoyment of Neil Young please click here

Video courtesy of David Towl.