Concert review: Neil Young rocks and roars

Rock god Neil Young took the stage Tuesday night at Xcel Energy Center to a standing ovation, put his hands together as if to pray and bowed humbly.

Then he threw on Ol' Black, his weathered and tarnished black electric guitar, the strap decorated with peace symbols and doves. The guitar feedback started immediately and then Young danced with his longtime partner, trying to coax sounds out of her as he worked his way through "Love and Only Love" and the more familiar "Hey Hey, My My." Young was roaringly urgent, full of fury like a 20-year-old punk at the 7th Street Entry, not a 62-year-old godfather of grunge in the middle of a hockey arena.

"It's better to burn out than fade, fade," he roared during the ferocious "Hey Hey." He was burning it up, not burning out.

It was a terrific Neil Young show, front-loaded with rip-roaring rock favorites, followed by quieter, acoustic treats, three unrecorded new electric numbers and a blaze of ragged glory at the finish, concluding with the Beatles' "A Day in the Life" and Ol' Black's strings torn and frayed, with the sound still ringing and reverberating .

This two-hour, 18-song performance was more satisfying than Young's two-set (one solo acoustic, one electric with band) concert last November at Northrop Auditorium. Last year, he favored more obscure numbers that appealed to hardcore fans; last night, working with a different band than in 2007, he went mostly with crowd-pleasers that had the fans of all ages cheering wildly.

Even though the outspoken rocker was playing in the same arena where he lobbied for a Vote for Change in 2004 with Bruce Springsteen, where he exercised his freedom of speech in a scathingly anti-Bush, anti-war show in 2006 with Crosby, Stills & Nash and where the Republican Party nominated John McCain last month, Young was surprisingly non-political. There were no songs from his scorching 2006 "Living with War" CD and no between-song diatribes. As he sang in one of the new tunes, "just singing a song won't change the world."

OK, he did quip during one gap in the show, apropos of nothing: "We need a miracle. We'd love a miracle, please. I'll take a guitar."

So his roadie rushed out with Ol' Black. It was the first night of the Rock Hall of Famer's 21-city North American tour that will visit eight cities in his native Canada. Not surprisingly, there were a couple of glitches, such as the missing guitar or Young's frustration with his harmonica in its rack, which he threw off after blowing a few bars during "Helpless."

It didn't matter which guitar Young played -- acoustic, Ol' Black or his other electric. He made each guitar speak eloquently, passionately and persuasively -- to the bodies and the souls of all 7,400 concertgoers.

Jon Bream • 612-673-1719