Neil Young managed to dig into his archives and found his acoustic performance of “Cowgirl in the Sand,” filmed January 21st, 1971 at Stratford, Connecticut’s Shakespeare Theater. The never-before-seen performance is now available via Neil Young Archives.
The performance took place just three days after his homecoming concert at Toronto’s Massey Hall, which was released as an official live album back in 2007.
“Over the years I always remembered Massey Hall as being the best performance of that tour,” Young recently wrote. “I [recently] found that I liked the Stratford show even better than Massey Hall, even though Massey Hall was the emotional high point of my life.”
The Massey Hall performance was only audio-documented while the Stratford show was filmed by Dutch photographer Wim van der Linden. The gig was one of Young’s earliest performances captured on film. Young played two shows at the theater during the night, but this newly released “Cowgirl in the Sand” rendition comes from the early one. “This is a song I wrote about a dream I had,” Young says before playing it. “It was snowing outside. It was the kind of show that sticks on your nose.”
Click here and watch Neil Young’s ‘Cowgirl in the Sand’ Performance Back In 1971 on Neil Young Archives.