Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young are moving forward with a documentary film and live album from the quartet’s Freedom of Speech ‘06 North American tour, both of which are expected to be released this year.
David Crosby tells Billboard.com that Neil Young is currently working on the film amidst his other well-chronicled archival projects that are due out this year, while all four are listening to show tapes for the CD. The documentary, he says, will be more ambitious than merely a concert film. “It’s a movie that we’d take to the festivals and try to win with,” Crosby notes.
“You’ve got to understand this was a pretty controversial tour,” he adds, noting that the material from Young’s politically strident “Living With War” album tended to have a polarizing effect on the crowds. “We had a lot of people who felt very strongly that we were speaking for them; when we would say the war (in Iraq) was a bad idea, they really, really loved it. There was also a very small minority of very vocal people who would say, ‘You can’t say that about George!’ and get very upset and stomp out.”
CSNY’s film crew interviewed people from both camps, according to Crosby, as well as soldiers who had been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. “We brought them to the shows and asked them what they thought about (the war) and also got them to write songs,” he reports. “We just talked to a lot of people all over the place about where America is right now, about what the significance is of this polarization that’s taken place in this country, what’s at stake and how they think it might play out.
“It’s pretty critical stuff. We feel like the Constitution is pretty much on the line here, and so the movie, I think, will concern itself with all of those things.”
There’s no title or release date yet for the film or the live album, which Crosby says will be drawn from the 2006 shows and not incorporate any of the recordings CSNY made of its 2000 and 2002 tours. “We feel that this (tour) made a gel better than any of the others,” he explains. “We finally got the right bass player and drummer and had some new material that was really special.”
Crosby is preparing to tour Australia and New Zealand with Stephen stills and Graham Nash in February and early March, while he and Nash will play U.S. dates in the spring. A CSN tour is expected this summer, but Crosby says reports of another CSNY tour later this year are “news to me…although nothing would make me happier.”
