Stills strings out spotlight for some top guitar

by Dennis Law, The Knickerbocker News, June 30, 1975

Stephen Stills just seems unable to take a vacation. There is probably too much music in his system, and he has to exercise it through touring.

There was a remarkable difference in the Stills whom I saw about three years ago and the Stills who performed Sunday at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

The Stills of old was…well…beset by some ego problems. He commanded the spotlight, he was the lead guitarist, and it was his tour.

But Sunday night Stills showed himself as a new man, and more importantly, as an ever-growing, ever improving musician.

Stills has found himself a fine backup band, and no longer seems to feel the need to remain the constant focus of the band. During the song “Colorado,” Stills played a subtle rhythm almost hidden by the amps.

Stills played for a little over two hours, breaking the performance into two electric sets, with an acoustic set in the middle.

He started the show with an electric version of “Love the One You’re With,” followed by a driving rendition of “Wooden Ships.” The lead guitarist (whose name came somewhat blurred over the sound system) provided the harmony that normally would have been done by David Crosby and Graham Nash.

Stills fished out one of his six or seven electric guitars for a very fine “Johnny’s Garden.” With the exception of some of the songs in the acoustic set (more about that in a minute), “Johnny’s Garden” was one of the better songs of the evening.

With the introduction, “I’m gonna do a song by a friend of mine,” and then, “Sounds a little different,” Stills launched into Neil Young’s “The Loner.” Stills has put a Latin lick into the song, and the difference between the two versions was nice to compare.

Stills spent a good portion of the electric set rocking back and forth on his heels, signalling the other members of the band with subtle nods and grinning when some nasty leads would come whining out.

Stills opened the acoustic set with “Changing Partners,” which seems to get better with age. Then it was out with the banjo for “Know You Got to Run,” which always seems to test just how low Stills can sing. But he always pulls it off.

Another nice note: Stills has shunned some of his own compositions for others. He did *Blackbird,” which Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young used to do.

Also, the gutsy “Crossroads” has been incorporated into the act, and the song shows Stills can, as Crosby once said, “play rings around anybody else. From “Crossroads,” Stills broke right into, of all things, Chuck Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me.”

The second electric set served to further illustrate the tightness of the band, and the show definitely belonged to Stills (although he was upstaged briefly when two cops got into the frisbee-flying).

Stills kept talk at a minimum between songs, thereby placing the focus on the music, where it belonged.

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