Shakey cam

Two key works by cult filmmaker Bernard Shakey finally reach Blu-Ray. By Stevie Chick.

Filmed during his 1978 tour supporting the album of the same name that dragged him out of his “ditch”, Rust Never Sleeps plays things straighter, though only just. This Bernard Shakey joint plays sly games with the concert movie format: Young’s crew are dressed like Jawas from Star Wars and dubbed Road-Eyes, and the movie’s first eight minutes are given over to their lugging oversized microphones, speakers and tuning forks about the stage. An opening acoustic set revisiting early gems like Sugar Mountain and I Am A Child plays like Baby Boomer comfort food, with announcements from Woodstock warning that the brown acid is “not specifically too good” played between songs. When Crazy Horse arrive on-stage, though, Young’s done with nostalgia; his latest album had name-checked Johnny Rotten, and the likes of Welfare Mothers and Sedan Delivery are possessed by a raw, white-hot punk energy, not the work of some hippy relic but a man whose career is always characterised by a commitment to ‘the moment’. Hair hacked short, wild-eyed and gleefully awkward, dwarfed by his Brechtian stage gear, the Young of Rust Never Sleeps is no less odd and artful a deconstruction of the rock frontman than the big-suited David Byrne of Stop Making Sense several years later. But if Rust Never Sleeps’ audacious twists – not least an unexpected post-credits encore of Tonight’s The Night – still impress, that’s because the performances are among the greatest Young ever committed to celluloid. For committed fans and neophytes alike, Rust Never Sleeps remains the definitive Young live document.