This is a pretty professional job for a bootleg. Exceptionally, the cover photo is from the same year as the performance. It's obviously from the same photo session as that which produced the cover to Ragged Glory. I haven't seen any other photos from that session elsewhere, so someone involved in this had pretty good acces— the sound is also good enough to be able to grumble about the poor mix, where often 'bootleg quality' means that everything is drowning in a stew of reverb.
So, what do we have here? Evidently a warm-up gig for what was to become the Weld tour of early 1991. At one point, between songs, Neil says this is the "second stop on our backwoods tour" — it was in fact the second and last (more on that in a moment). This was recorded in late 1990 at The Catalyst in Santa Cruz (I've been there, you know; it's very small, though not as small as… uh-huh, I've said all that before).
At this stage the first Gulf War was not yet fully under way, so the set list bears none of the 'yellow ribbon' trappings that provided the backdrop to Weld, no Blowing in the Wind or Star-Spangled Banner. Instead it's 85% of Ragged Glory, plus selections from essence-of-Horse albums from the mid-seventies (Zuma, American Stars 'n' Bars) and early eighties (Re.ac.tor).
Crazy Horse were never a studio polish band, and would probably sound like a warm-up gig if they were playing a Royal Variety Performance (hmmm, why not?). So the playing on this warm-up show is not appreciably different from what you'd get at a larger show. The interest, as always with the Horse, comes in the loose extended jams: Love to Burn (over 14 minutes, luvverly), Over and Over, Danger Bird, Hurricane, Love and Only Love, and Cortez. I don't analyse the jams and solos in the different versions of these songs any more than I do on the Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings, but it's still good to hear each one unfolding along slightly different lines.
More historical detail. The CD says it was recorded on 13th November 1990. In the middle of each CD, Neil announces an interval, "we'll be back soon". I thought it was unusual to play three sets in one night, and wondered if the bootleg might have actually been recorded over two nights at the same venue — especially as someone shouts "Happy Birthday" just before Cortez and, as we all know, Neil's birthday is 12th November. However, consulting Ghosts on the Road backs up the CD cover. Neil and Crazy Horse did indeed also play on 12th November, but they did so at the Mountain House (allegedly the diner that features in Unknown Legend), and didn't play Cortez.
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