Neil Young: Sugar mountain - Live at Canterbury 1968

4 / 5 stars

To anyone but the most dedicated fan, the Neil Young Archives - an exhaustive documentation of his four-decade live career - looks like a superfluous and self-indulgent extravagance. You don't have to be much of a fan, however, to appreciate the latest instalment: recordings culled from two gigs that took place days before his 23rd birthday and the release of his debut solo album. The tracklist ebbs and flows between tunes unknown to the audience, Buffalo Springfield material and songs from his teenage years (the tremulous lament for youth, Sugar Mountain), and strikes a consistently plaintive note. It's this banter with the audience, however, that leavens proceedings. His meandering tale of a two-week attempt to hold down a job at a bookshop while experimenting with "diet" pills is priceless, and he delivers the story of writing The Old Laughing Lady with a comic timing that makes it gleam.