There is just something about the Fillmore East, the legendary New York City concert venue, which has produced some great live concert albums over the years. The Allman Brothers, Grateful Dead and Derek & the Dominos are just several of the bands that count live albums recorded there. Neil Young, backed by his rock band Crazy Horse, can now be counted in this pantheon of bands with great albums recorded at the Fillmore East with the new live album, appropriately titled Live at the Fillmore East.

Although this concert was recorded back in 1970, it was just recently released. It stands to be the first part in a long line of planned archive releases over the course of Young’s career. This album documents one of the first shows that Young and Crazy Horse performed in support of their then-recent album, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere.

On this particular tour, the group opened each show with a brief acoustic set, which is unfortunately absent on this disc. What is left, however, is an excellent example of Neil Young’s take on rock and roll. When Neil wanted to, he could really rock out. Pair him with Crazy Horse and you’re looking at a mighty fine rock band. Clocking in at just around 40 minutes, Young and his band mates left everything short and sweet, with the exception of two extended tracks on the album.

The focal point of the album is the continual guitar interplay between Young and his Crazy Horse counterpart Danny Whitten, a man who would tragically fall victim to a heroin overdose a mere two years after this concert was performed. Whitten and Young do not really duel one another, rather they build upon each other’s melodies in a way that helps to shape exactly what Young was going for at the time. Young has always been known as a man who is constantly trying to reinvent and modify his sound—from acoustic, to rockabilly, to country, to hard rock—and whenever he is with Crazy Horse, he is in “hard rock mode.”

The two longer songs on the album, “Down by the River” and the finale, “Cowgirl in the Sand” dramatically and forcefully help to convey the emotion of the lyrics and music. Throughout these songs, twelve minutes and sixteen minutes each, respectively, Young and Whitten feed off each other’s notes, trying to blend together and then take the music to an even higher level. These songs, despite their length, never seem to be boring; rather the solos and riffs seem to evolve in a circular motion. It is unfortunate that Whitten died early. With the way this group is performing on this record, it is clear that they were headed for great things.

Whitten does leave an indelible mark on the group with the performance of his song “Come on Baby Let’s Go Downtown.” Although this song was never recorded by Whitten before he died, Young placed it on his 1973 classic Tonight’s the Night.

The music on this release is incredible; something any fan of Neil Young should not be without. Even beginners to his sound, can find this album quite accessible for wanting to get a glimpse into what the hard rock side of Young is like. It is a mystery why it took 36 years for this album to see the light of day, but the quality of the music performed, not to mention the sound quality of the recording of the album itself makes it worth every bit of the wait.