Neil Young entered the 1990s acting as if his erratic 1980s never happened. He spent the bulk of the ’80s sowing wild oats while in an unhappy union with Geffen Records. The label was so aggrieved by the mercurial singer-songwriter’s behavior that they filed suit against Young, accusing him of purposefully delivering uncommercial albums. Perhaps they had a point: Once he returned to his old home at Reprise, he started making music like he had in the old days. Buoyed by the creative and commercial rebirth of 1989’s Freedom, Young reconnected with Crazy Horse, the ambling backing band who had supported him through good times and bad since way back in 1969. Picking up a fuzzy strand left hanging from Rust Never Sleeps, the 1979 album that represented their last great triumph, Young and Crazy Horse knocked out Ragged Glory at his Broken Arrow Ranch in a few weeks. The quick sessions resulted in an album with a spontaneous feel; it was the liveliest and loudest Crazy Horse had ever sounded in the studio.
As a full-bore rock’n’roll record, Ragged Glory was an ideal album to take out on the road, which is precisely what Neil Young and Crazy Horse did, spending the first four months of 1991 roaring through North America’s arenas with supporting acts Sonic Youth and Social Distortion in tow. Young’s decision to bring a pair of prominent alternative rockers on tour underscored the wild, untamed character of his work with Crazy Horse, with its swirls of distortion and primitive thump. The ensuing live 2xLP, Weld, and feedback-laden Arc EP tapped into the arena-sized aggression that fueled the band at its peak, all the way back to 1979’s incendiary Live Rust. Way Down in the Rust Bucket, the 12th live album in Young’s ongoing (and now absurdly active) Archives series, flips that energy on its head. Here, Crazy Horse aren’t interested in assaulting their audience; instead, they’re grooving along alongside them.
Some of this change in tone is surely due to the change in venue. Way Down in the Rust Bucket captures a November 13, 1990 gig at the small Santa Cruz club the Catalyst, a hometown bar that became Young’s regular stomping ground in 1977, when he spent the summer figuring out whether his ill-fated group the Ducks had a future. The Ducks didn’t survive 1977, but Young’s connection to the Catalyst endured; it became a place for him to limber up before heading back out on the road. That’s precisely what happened in November 1990: With two months to go before a big arena tour, the time was ripe to kick off the cobwebs. Playing in their own backyard—for fans who were close enough to be friends, and friends who were more like family—shaped the concert from its setlist to its execution. Gone are expected crowd-pleasers like “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black),” “Powderfinger,” “Rockin’ in the Free World” and “Tonight’s the Night,” all swapped out for oddball selections designed to scratch some itch of the band: American Stars ’n Bars’ cornpone romp “Homegrown,” a revved-up reading of the Re·ac·tor deep cut “Surfer Joe and Moe the Sleaze,” plus the inane blues stomp “T-Bone.”