AMG Review of Live Rust

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

All the kudos Neil Young earned for Rust Never Sleeps he lost for Live Rust, the double-LP live album released four months later. Live Rust was the soundtrack to Young's concert film #Rust Never Sleeps (he had wanted to give it that title, but Reprise vetoed the idea, fearing confusion with the earlier album), and likewise was recorded October 22, 1978, at ~the Cow Palace in San Francisco. But much of the Rust Never Sleeps album had been recorded on the same tour, and Live Rust repeated four songs from that disc; besides, since Young had released the career retrospective Decade in 1977, critics felt he was unfairly recycling his older material and repeating his new material. In retrospect, however, Live Rust, now a single 74-minute CD, comes off as an excellent Neil Young live album and career summary, starting with the early song "Sugar Mountain" and running through then-new songs like "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)" and "Powderfinger." Young is effective in both his acoustic folksinger and hard-rocking Crazy Horse bandleader modes. The various distractions of the concert itself and the film, such as the pretentious props and cowled roadies, are absent, and what's left is a terrific Neil Young concert recording.