Carrying on with Crosby, Stills & Nash

The law of averages tells us that Crosby, Stills and Nash shouldn’t even be around today, let alone performing an Asian tour. So many of their contemporaries are no longer alive — Janis, Jimi, Jerry Garcia, Gram Parsons — that you’d think the septuagenarian trio must’ve caught some lucky breaks along the way.

Yet half a century since emerging from the embers of three ‘60s bands — The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield and The Hollies — they’re still around. Carrying on, as they say.

White-haired, with the wizened look and pensive gait of true hippie statesmen, CSN still abide. The group was in Manila to light up some hippie dreams, stoke a lot of memories, and maybe even save some whales.

Opening with Carry On, the lively Stephen Stills romp from 1970’s “Déjà Vu,” the trio rolled out the hits at Araneta Coliseum.

A lot of history in that room. My wife wore a “Hotel California” T-shirt, which a certain Igan D’Byan reminds us has a connection with these Laurel Canyon denizens: back in the day, man, Joni Mitchell used to hold court with CSN, and sometimes Young, and hell, David Crosby probably taught her how to retune her guitar alternately (or was it the other way around?); and as the documentary Legends of the Canyon makes clear, a couple of Eaglets were always nearby, crashed on the couch or holed up on a mattress, waiting to become… The ‘70s.

Looking up at the stage, as Graham Nash switches over to electric piano to serve up Our House, the memories keep coming. Nash as the romantic glue of the band, bringing together the wilder tendencies of Crosby and Stills. As the night unfolds, the Paul McCartney likeness becomes clearer: the unflagging pop tones sprinkled over the salt and pepper vocals of the other two; the sunny optimism; he’s even still got a full head of hair, albeit lion mane white. Nash did most of the talking that evening in Manila (Crosby just too cool to do much besides stride the stage with hands in pockets), saying how fitting it was to be there with what appeared to be generations of Filipinos at the home of the “Thrilla in Manila.” Much cheering. Nash then uncorked a vintage number from the past — the way past — with the Hollies’ hit Bus Stop, pretty much carrying the song himself.

Indeed, it was interesting to see how these three musicians interacted, sometimes stepping back from one another, other times coming up to fill the breach. Of course, when CSN went on premature hiatus after the live document “Four-Way Street” in 1972 (and an even bigger tour in ‘74 Crosby dubbed “The Doom Tour”), they splintered into duet recordings, changed partners repeatedly, toured separately and (in one ill-fated case) with Neil Young — every combination except CSN.

Until the trio reformed in 1977 with a “hit” self-titled album, which bore the single Just a Song Before I Go, which fit cozily into the soft rock environment of late-‘70s Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac. Onstage in Manila, it seemed a little strange coming early on in the first set, but Nash’s gentle falsetto brought it back to ground safely.

In terms of coming to the breach, Stills seemed the most in need of onstage intervention. His vocals were a tattered affair — years of well-documented alcohol, cocaine abuse and recovery from prostate cancer have taken their toll — so he chose to make his array of guitars sing for him: weaving solos throughout Crosby’s hippie anthem Almost Cut My Hair or dropping in mean licks during Carry On showed he was with them, in spirit and mind, even if his vocals are a bit sketchy. 

In fact one of the night’s more touching moments was Stills’ brave solo take on Dylan’s Girl From North Country, accompanied by acoustic. By the second verse, his pals were there at the mic beside him, and the song became a victory of sorts.

Stills was not afraid to open his own vintage wine either, dipping into an early lengthy jam on Buffalo Springfield’s Bluebird, the rollicking (if sexist) gospel number Love the One You’re With, and the standout Springfield hit For What It’s Worth. (There was that pleasant moment when people around you go: “Oh, he wrote that, too?”) Indeed, Stills was the architect behind much of CSN’s more ambitious productions, whipping up modular classics like Suite: Judy Blue Eyes (just try finding the guitar tabs online; good luck) showing him at his creative peak.

And then along came Neil.

Neil Young was the unspoken absence in Manila (though a few wags cried out “Where’s Neil??”), the one who bailed on the band when their huge success threatened to “drive them into a ditch” in ’74. Fittingly, the trio didn’t go near Young’s well-known hits with the band, such as Ohio and Helpless. They didn’t even fire up Joni Mitchell’s Woodstock, which would have necessitated some very Neil-like opening guitar licks. (Indeed, listening to the song now on record reminds us of the passive-aggressive rivalry bubbling beneath this placid hippie band: Neil’s jagged riffs cut into the heart of Stills’ more conventional rockist lines during the outro.)

Of course, CSN has reformed on occasion since then, and even toured as CSNY (in 2006, mostly to peddle Neil’s anti-war material). But again, the thing to notice in Manila was a kind of longstanding brotherhood. These cats help each other out onstage.

Crosby, the bona fide hippie bard of Laurel Canyon, is still in fine fettle. With his wavy white locks (set in motion by a nearby fan) and Wilfred Brimley demeanor, he demonstrated that his vocal chops are, indeed, intact. Much of the tighter harmonizing occurred between he and Nash (no offense to Stills, who still adds a fine gravelly gravitas to their trio singing). There was a nod to their side projects, with a tape playing the architectural vocal piece Critical Mass before their duet on Wind on the Water. Crosby hauled out his open-tuned Martin to commence Déjà Vu, with heaps of scat vocalizing which led to a fine interval of jamming from Stills and the various band members. A highlight was Guinnevere, with its eerie opening chord cycle and lush harmonies filled out by Nash. Wooden Ships was another hippie relic by Crosby, with its post-nuclear dialogue and ambitious structure. And he also pleased the crowd with his Long Time Gone, but I myself was hoping he’d uncork some obscure Byrds numbers (Everybody’s Been Burned or Triad, perhaps?) to show his roots in the past, or perhaps even a number from his fine “If I Could Only Remember My Name” solo debut. Crosby, of course, has a heap of history behind him: the only guy to get kicked out of the Byrds twice, he became enamored of cocaine and handguns at about the same time in the mid-‘70s, leading to a period of paranoia and incarceration in the ‘80s that at least got him cleaned up and writing songs again. And of course, he famously donated the sperm for Melissa Etheridge’s baby.

History’s a funny thing. Young people are a little afraid of it. They haven’t lived it, you see; they only read about it online. But seeing these guys onstage, still involved, still playing it like it’s all that matters, you can’t help feeling that some history is well worth revisiting.