Theatrical Review of CSNY: Déjà Vu

Hey Chris... thanks for the review.

I'm a casual fan of CSNY, and Crosby was formerly a member of The Byrds (a personal fav of mine), along with his talented vocals, and the other members of the group... and I also enjoy Stills' guitar playing (he was particularly impressive in the Acoustic concert, which I own on LaserDisc, and his Manassas LP).

That said... Young is really hit and miss when it comes to protest songs (or his similar protest songs against corporation sponsors - "This Bud's For You"). Like you said, some songs are well done, but not always. And the talent of this group is obvious (like The Dixie Chicks too), as most of us fans do wish they would just "shut up and sing".

Whether one agrees with the Iraq/Afghani war or not, by now it seems that the goals have indeed been effective, albeit at a very high financial cost to the American taxpaying public, both now and into the future. We all should worry about our country's perilous financial situation going forward, as both parties don't seem to care about their over-spending and budgets.

As a Republican supporter of Bush, I've been very disappointed in his second term, and feel that Ron Paul would have made a better president then either of the two candidates we have running, due to his views on the budget (congressional spending) and tax policy.

But back to the concert... I'll be renting it, and trust that the guitar playing of Stephen Stills is as great as in the past.

_____________
-JOE-
(Jimi McLovin - Love Hendrix!)

I'm not sure how we have in any way accomplished our goals in either Iraq or Afghanistan, but I agree it was at a high cost.

I was disappointed in how little concert footage there was here. I understand it was meant as a political film that happened to be following a concert tour, but when you call your film "CSNY" you should probably provide a little more music. There were several performances of the mediocre "Let's Impeach the President" but only a handful of other songs. Also, as I mentioned, the sound was surprisingly weak. If you are looking for it solely as a concert film, you might be disappointed.

I'm a huge Neil Young fan but I don't know if he's cut to be a director. Greendale was rather heavy-handed, and so is this one. Still, I think there's just enough there to be worthy of a lukewarm recommendation.

At least they're still at there fighting the fight after 40 years. Are any of the younger musicians mounting large scale protests like this? I haven't seen any of them stepping up, but I have to admit I don't exactly follow the contemporary music scene closely so I may be missing somebody.

cslong said -

Quote:
"At least they're still at there fighting the fight after 40 years. Are any of the younger musicians mounting large scale protests like this? I haven't seen any of them stepping up, but I have to admit I don't exactly follow the contemporary music scene closely so I may be missing somebody."

Yeah... the only ones I can think of at the moment are Springsteen, and John Mellencamp (although not with "large scale protests") - and neither is young. But I'm sure there are some younger types out there protesting (during a concert)... it's just that their quality of music probably is nowhere near the quality of Springsteen, CSNY, Joan Baez, Melissa Etheridge or other legends (etc) - of course.

-JOE-
(Love Hendrix!)