David Crosby - vocals, guitar; Jeff Pevar - guitar; James Raymond - keyboards
Many years after his self-described "enforced vacation" in a Texas prison but just a few years before Melissa Etheridge announced he was the biological father of her children, the loud-talking rock star with the angelic voice brought himself and his new band, CPR, to the annual Hog Farm Pig-Nic for a predictably laidback set of music.
Blighted by cold weather and complaints about his monitor mix, Crosby is nothing if not the ultimate professional—nothing fazes him. "Lotta weird shit happens to me," he says, as if talking to a friend in his living room while working his way around new and old material. Telling stories and taking his time with each note and breath along the way, "This is a love song," he says, by way of introducing the minor-keyed and meditative "Rusty and Blue." "I tell you that because my shit is so weird, you might not know."
Accompanied by Jeff Pevar on guitar and recently reunited with his son, James Raymond, Crosby acts like a proud papa, bandleader, and psychedelicized '60s poster icon all rolled into one. "I've always been the guy who writes weird shit," he says, then adds that James' stuff is even stranger, before letting his son take the lead on the piano-based "One For Every Moment."
Crosby also gives the nod to old friend Joni Mitchell, whose strangely chorded songs bear a similarity to his own. "This song is written by a lady who I think is one of the best songwriters of this century. We're friends and I love her and all that stuff, but that's not why I'm gong to sing this song—I'm singing it because I like what it says," he declares at the top of "Real Good for Free."
Claiming to have earned a PhD in being lost, he introduces "Morrison" by dedicating it to fellow lost traveler, Jim. The show culminates with a trippy version of "Eight Miles High," the song Crosby wrote with Roger McGuinn and Gene Clark when they were still the Byrds. He encores with an electric grunge version of his hippie solidarity song, "Almost Cut My Hair."
A trip with Crosby is all about the journey rather than the destination so hang on tight: This night is another one of Mr. Crosby's wild rides.