Photo credit: Adam Miszewski
If you still have a career in popular music when you’re well past retirement age, people justifiably tend to cut you quite a bit of slack, to the point that a good chunk of your job is done just by showing up. Fans understand that septuagenarian performers aren’t as spry as they used to be (probably because they themselves aren’t) and at that point it becomes easy to simply stick to the script and let nostalgia take care of the rest. It’s refreshing, then, whenever you come across some elder statesmen who actually look like they’re enjoying themselves onstage, as opposed to merely getting through yet another show, like Crosby, Stills and Nash did Sunday night at the Riverside Theater, especially since their fans would have lined up to pack the place either way.
As the instrumental cover of “A Day in the Life” booming over the loudspeakers reached its version of that dramatic crescendo, the Riverside lights dimmed and CSN (sorry, you’ll have to wait until Summerfest for Y) emerged, without the benefit of an opening act, and broke into “Carry On,” the lead off track from their 1970 sophomore effort Déjà Vu. That was followed by an hour or so of various hits, like a lively, sing-along rendition of the Laurel Canyon classic “Our House” in dedication to the ailing Joni Mitchell, as well as the iconic, Stills-penned Buffalo Springfield cut “For What It’s Worth”, which, while horribly overused as cliché shorthand for the social unrest of the ’60s, still manages to retain a good deal of its paranoid power, particularly in light of current events.
After a 20-minute intermission, the trio took some time to show off their most recent solo material instead of just playing more of the same old songs, the kind of thing that has kept the group sounding fresh after all these years or, as Graham Nash rather cattily put it Sunday, that prevented them from turning into The Eagles. The new numbers weren’t half bad either, especially those by the surprisingly still-alive David Crosby, who claimed to have been so inspired of late that he’s temporarily quit smoking pot in an effort to capture it all more clearly. Once every member had their turn, they returned to the bread and butter of their back catalog, wrapping up with “Teach Your Children Well.” They may be getting up there, but CSN is sounding good regardless.
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