Crosby, Stills & Nash in The Bord Gáis Energy Theatre on September 16^th 2015

We get the lowdown from David Crosby, in a moment of respite from a career-spanning miscellany in the cosseted environs of the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre. Steven Stills takes care of the rock’n’roll, while Graham Nash writes the anthems that the world loves to sing. “I write the weird shit“, the low-key humorist informs us with a smile, self-deprecatingly droll when it comes to his own input.  For over forty-five years now that formula has held up, and Crosby, Stills & Nash, together and independently, continue to record and release music.

From The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and The Hollies respectively, the three men convened and released their eponymous debut in ’69 – an album that’s well-accounted for in tonight’s selection – before Neil Young expanded the band to a quartet on the follow-up, ‘Déjà Vu’, and became an intermittent, acrimonious collaborator over the next thirty years. The CSNY material unsurprisingly makes up the remaining bulk of the set, and Carry On/Questions leads straight in with those rich vocal harmonies to the fore.

Backed by a five-piece band, the three men variously switch between acoustic and electric from a choice selection of guitars. Lead vocal duties are passed around, at times the trio shifting to a duo – as with Crosby’s duet with Nash on Guinnevere, dedicated to his wife (“most of you know my history, so you know she’s gotta be a fucking saint”) – and at others contracting to a solo endeavour. “You mean I can go take a nap?” asks Crosby as Nash goes it alone on Back Home, a new number dedicated to Levon Helm. “Okay, which one of you did that?” Crosby asks the crowd as his guitar strap comes unstuck before Signs Of Life, leading to a gentle heckle from the front rows. “That’s the face of elder abuse right there” he deadpans, before handing over to Stills for his turn at some new material on Virtual World.

There are some sojourns into the dreaded arena of Adult Contemporary it has to be said – Just A Song Before I Go plods along, vocally spot-on but somewhat dull coming on the heels of Long Time Gone. Our House and Déjà vu get the crowd involved, goaded along by tales of the previous night’s Scottish crowd’s efforts. Crosby cups an ear on the former to hear the stalls and offers encouragement before the intermission (“Very good job. You’re hired. Buses will be outside“) where Magnums and Ben & Jerry’s are the order of the day along the aisles, a more demure mid-gig indulgence than CSN days of yore.

“Certain songs that we wrote, we don’t believe in anymore. This is not one of them” offers Nash before the CSNY double whammy of Chicago and Almost Cut My Hair. The latter is triumphant – Nash hops around between his colleagues, the crowd whoop in response to Crosby’s pronouncements, and Stills comes out in front of the monitors to let his guitar wail. It brings the crowd to their feet, steeling them for the crescendo of Wooden Ships that ends the set.

The two-song encore of Teach Your Children and Suite: Judy Blue Eyes bring things to a close just as the audience is stirring from their all-seated malaise, appreciative of the selection from the band’s back catalogue, Crosby’s humorous presence, and the thought of getting home at a reasonable hour. Crosby’s earlier role descriptions seem spot on – he is the quietly gregarious host, ambling around with hands in pockets when he’s off guitar duties. Stills is the eternal axe-wielder, adding the edge of noise to the now polished-by-time songs. Nash is the more rooted presence, his more sombre demeanour leading the set through its temporal journey. Old and new stand side by side, the former more successfully; the fire of those tracks from the earliest records still cause the three songwriters to spark off one another.