So what seperated the 2007, $170. a ticket version of Neil Young in concert, from previous models seen and heard at considerably more reasonable prices in past years?

In a lot of ways not much, truth be told. Although — unlike past Neil Young shows where you usually got either an exclusively acoustic show, or the more hard rocking, cranked to eleven model (usually with Crazy Horse) — with this past Tuesday's Seattle stop on the Chrome Dreams Continental tour, you did get the whole package in one shot. And you got quite a bit of it to boot, in a show that ran nearly three hours figuring in breaks and intermissions.

Another big difference with Neil this time around was the way the show ran like clockwork. Despite its length, it started and ended right on time, and the intermission times between sets — at fifteen and twenty five minutes respectively — were strictly adhered to, and kept as though handed down by law.

This actually made for some discomfort during the break between the acoustic and electric sets. The twenty five minute break alloted you barely enough time to stand in the single line bathroom, and you could pretty much forget about attempting to grab a frosty beverage (in keeping with the inflated ticket prices, a Bud Light at the WAMU cost $8.25 anyway).

So when the familiar strains of a particularly cranked sounding "The Loner" sounded the alarm to return to your seat, you were then made to wait in the lobby until the song ended. Which only created a mass of people trying to get to their seats by the time of the second electric tune, "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere." A pretty pointless exercise all told, since this actually made the visibility for those already seated even worse in the flat-as-a board WAMU Theatre (there is no slope in the rows at the venue), as a throng of folks crowded the aisles in search of their seats.

With that said, the setlist at this show was nothing short of a dream come true for a hardcore Neil Young fan.

Heavy on rarities, and even some never before heard songs, I can honestly say that I never thought I would live to see such rarely played songs as "Ambulance Blues" from On The Beach performed live by Neil Young. Yet there it was, as the very second performed tune of the evening in the acoustic portion of the show, sandwiched in between the opening "From Hank To Hendrix" and the never released "Sad Movies," (rumored to be intended for the likewise unreleased Homegrown album).

I've been to numerous Neil Young concerts where I have heard songs like "Rockin In The Free World" and "My, My, Hey, Hey" performed dozens of times (neither were here). But there was no denying the feeling that this was something special. Of course, since such typically played songs were not performed, you had the usual "rawk n' roll" types screaming out for them — a fact that Neil seemed to take with uncharacteristically good humor. At one point, when one such fan yelled for "Like A Hurricane" (which was later played in the encore), Neil responded by asking "where's the segue?"