Of the open air rock concerts staged in England during the 1970s among those to have entered the ‘hallowed be thy name’ category are headlining shows by The Who (The Oval 1971, Charlton 1976) and Led Zeppelin (Knebworth 1979).
But the one that appears to have taken on the most mythical status is the September 1974 Wembley Stadium performance of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
The Who were no doubt louder and Zeppelin played to a bigger audience, yet neither were as reflective of where rock music currently stood as the gig played by the reformed Californian super group (consisting of two Americans, a transplanted Englishman and a Canadian) – who stepped on stage in the warm sunshine of a London Saturday evening to play an epic, three and a half hour, 32-song set.
For Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, the Wembley appearance came a week after the end of their ‘Summer of 74‘ reunion jaunt around North America – when they had played the first extensive stadium tour, performing to huge audiences in cavernous baseball arenas.
Hitting the road together for the first time since an acrimonious, ego-riven split four years before, the protagonists had reconvened at Young’s ranch in June where they reportedly rehearsed some eighty songs – an astonishing amount of material when considering Crosby, Stills and Nash as a trio and then the quartet they became with Young, had only officially released twenty two studio tracks together, spread over two albums and a specially recorded single.
In the meantime they had each made, to varying degrees, some impressive music with Young firmly established as a pre-eminent creative force – although with their self-titled debut album (1969) Crosby, Stills and Nash, became the embodiment of the late-60s counter-culture.
Setting earnest lyrics and cushioned harmonies to folk-rock sensibilities, they were seen as an antidote to the prevailing heavy metal trends – and with the addition of Young for ‘Deja Vu‘ (1970) the standard of song-writing (bolstered by his contributions), not to mention record sales, took them to a level where in some quarters they were dubbed ‘the American Beatles.’
While the epithet struck some as being fatuous, there was no doubting their Young-penned single ‘Ohio‘ (a response to the shooting dead of four students at Kent State University, Ohio, by National Guardsmen in May 1970) was a powerful, emotive piece that also brought them a ‘spokesmen of their generation‘ tag.
In the years between their break-up and eventual reunion, there had been guest appearances by one or two of the aggregation on the solo albums of another, along with regular ‘surprise guest’ showings at concerts – the strongest indication a comeback was looming took place when Young joined Crosby and Nash on stage for much of their December 1973 San Francisco show.
When the next step of bringing Stills on board was taken, it was all systems go for a full-on assault in 1974, which at first was scheduled to encompass a new album, a tour and documentary film.
What ultimately transpired was a thirty date American tour – running through July, August and September – the Wembley show not only concluding the run, but proving their last live performance together for eleven years, CSN&Y not on stage once more until reuniting for the Philadelphia Live Aid concert of 1985.
For the most part the American shows had received positive reviews. In just about all the venues the sound was good, even when Stills and Young turned their guitars up to the maximum for a nightly six-string duel which brought the crowd to their feet – while drowning out the harmony vocals of Crosby and Nash.
But it was not all brute force – the three hour set was split into various sections of solo material, songs performed by a duo, with acoustic and electric sections thrown in for good measure.
To those on the outside, the four stars (augmented by drummer Russ Kunkel, bassist Tim Drummond and percussionist Joe Lala), seemed a unified ensemble both on and off stage, despite numerous tales of egotism and drug abuse – a few years on Crosby came to label it the ‘Doom Tour‘ when referring to the craziness and debauchery going on behind the scenes.
‘I think Stills, in particular, liked playing the enormous places,’ he said, ‘because he liked being big. And, in 1974, we were probably the biggest group in the world. Stephen liked that. It was enormously satisfying for him to have The Beach Boys, Santana, The Band and Joni Mitchell open for us. That was quite something.’ (Twelve months later Nash put his thoughts on the tour into a fine song with the pointed title, ‘Take The Money and Run‘).
Both Mitchell and The Band were on the under-card at Wembley – Joni supplementing CSN&Y throughout their performance, adding harmony vocals most notably to ‘Helpless‘ a Neil Young cut from ‘Deja Vu‘ and ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes‘ the acoustic tour de force by Stills that opens the debut album.
The London show followed the pattern established in America with its running order of electric and acoustic segments – despite the set list being a strange mix of twelve ‘group’ songs that are heavily outweighed by twenty solo numbers, some of which were unreleased at the time.
Of the solo material Young claims the biggest share with eight (one more than Stills) and he provides many of the highlights – ‘Helpless,’ ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart,’ and ‘Don’t Be Denied‘ are all superbly played and from the video footage of the show, it appears his songs are delivered with the most intensity. Stills also picks a strong selection for himself – even if a renowned capacity for excess had damaged his voice to the extent several excellent songs lose potency due to ragged vocals.
With such emphasis on solo material, as good as many of the songs are, it is sometimes difficult to view CSN&Y as a fully fledged rock group like say The Who or Led Zeppelin, who had their own distinct identity.
For example, the bass guitar solo in ‘My Generation‘ is the recognisable domain of John Entwistle whereas Crosby, Stills Nash & Young, when playing on tracks from the solo catalogue of another, can seem like the most expensively assembled session band in the world.
In the days pre-dating video screens and elaborate back-drops, Crosby and Nash do their best to keep the huge Wembley crowd (spread back across the pitch and high into the stands), engaged as each member of the troupe carries out their defined role in this superstar cast; Crosby, the avant-garde troubadour, Nash the sensitive singer-songwriter – the two of them sandwiched between guitarist extraordinaire (Stills) and Young, the nearest the 70s had come to finding a ‘new‘ Dylan.
The show appears to have climaxed with an extended workout of ‘Carry On‘ a Stills cut from ‘Deja Vu‘ – but from recordings and film footage at this juncture, it becomes clear the audience are going nowhere before an encore.
An eruption of cheering welcomes CSN&Y back to the stage where they deliver a searing rendition of ‘Ohio‘ – which strikes an even more emotional note in being performed only weeks after the resignation of Richard Nixon, the disgraced President name-checked in a song evoking the outrage that followed the killing of the Kent State students.
(The day after Nixon exited the White House after being exposed for his misdemeanors in the Watergate affair, Young performed the hastily-written ‘Goodbye Dick‘ at the Long Island stop of the American tour).
In their review of the Wembley show, the New Musical Express offered some typically forthright opinion on the historical legacy of CSN&Y:
‘The thought of CSN&Y as being on the same acceptance level as Dylan or the Stones is a profoundly disquieting one. In no way are they part of any musical or social revolution.’
The reviewer, however, is more contrite when describing the moment ‘Ohio‘ is presented to an adoring audience: ‘It was the finest possible ending, giving full play to the strengths of CSN&Y while completely eliminating their weaknesses. They finished as they had begun – powerful, unified and generally impressive.’
In concluding their review, the music paper Sounds commented: ‘It was rock ‘n’ roll at its most potent.’
The truth, as ever, is likely to be found somewhere in between. Throughout the tour and including the Wembley appearance there were undoubted highlights and obvious thin spots, the tales of hedonism (or as one insider put it ‘collateral excesses‘) that have since surfaced, making it a mind-boggling feat of endurance they were able to take the stage night after night and deliver such marathon concerts.
Being the first tour of such magnitude, the historical context is worth noting alongside that of the music.
When Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young walked triumphantly from the Wembley stage that Saturday night, Woodstock (where they had also starred) was already five years down the road and also far back in the distance were the aspirations of the Woodstock generation – whose ideals had been articulated in the songs of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
The Vietnam War, in terms of American involvement was over – but the full extent of the Nixon/Watergate scandal had yet to become apparent, while in music the emergence of punk rock was only eighteen months away.
Over the next two years Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young made a couple of attempts at reuniting for the album that had been muted at the time of the tour – only for the project to stall and then finally derail amidst predictable outbreaks of rancour and resentment.
But just when it appeared they would never come together again in an extended line-up (by which time most observers had lost interest in the idea anyway), Crosby, Stills and Nash chose 1977 – the year of punk – to release a reunion album.
While hardly the most relevant LP released that year it had its moments, their influence evident every time ‘Hotel California‘ came on the radio, the Eagles meshing dual lead guitars and four way harmonies into what stands as their most enduring work – thus creating the most lasting legacy of the 1974 Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young tour.
This article was first published on 14/9/2018;
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NEIL SAMBROOK is the author of MONTY’S DOUBLE – an acclaimed thriller now available in paperback and as an Amazon Kindle book.