Now this is one of Neil Young's most celebrated live performances. Legend has it that an audience was gathered to hear Ry Cooder play a gig at the Bottom Line club in NYC in May 1974. After Ry had left the stage, the MC announced that Neil Young would be up next to play a few solo songs. He wasn't on the bill, no one was expecting this, but — as he says between songs — he was just passing through town, and presumably wanted the opportunity to try out some unreleased songs in front of an audience.
This audience was treated to Helpless plus ten other unreleased songs (one of which, Citizen Kane Junior Blues a.k.a. Pushed it Over the End, remains unreleased, and Dance, Dance, Dance only came out this year on the official Archives release of the Massey Hall concert
This gig is much better known via the bootleg called Citizen Kane Junior Blues (which has two tracks from other gigs added on at the end). Many rave about it. Here's one. Johnny Rogan both praises it and quotes the between-song chatter as a research source in one or both of his Neil Young biographies.
This Roll Another Number bootleg is clearly a lot rarer (though it is listed in Pete Long's Ghosts on the Road book ‐ very little gets past Pete). And possibly not such good quality. I've never heard the Citizen Kane Junior Blues bootleg, so I don't know if they're both from the same recording, but mine is from an audience recording. You can hear enough to tell that's in an astonishing performance that only ever puts a foot wrong when that's the right thing to do (which, with these miserable downbeat songs, it often is).
I can't remember where and when I got it, though the $39.99 price label (ouch, I hope that's Canadian dollars) places it in San Francisco 1992, Toronto 1992, New York 1999 or somewhere on the west coast 2001.
MusicBrainz entry for Citizen Kane Junior Blues
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