SHORT TAKES : Young Mocks Bush at Concert

Canadian rock singer Neil Young, making a triumphant return concert in London on Tuesday, mocked President Bush and dedicated a song to the Chinese student who defied an army tank in the Beijing pro-democracy demonstrations.

While other 1960s survivors like the Rolling Stones and the Who have put their pension plans in order this year with nostalgia-laden tours, Young offered a bleak view of the state of America at the end of this decade.

The Woodstock veteran, who turned 44 last month, opened his set singing, “It’s better to burn out than it is to fade,” then prowled the stage like a hungry caveman, thrashing his acoustic guitar with the energy of someone half his age.

He played a number of old favorites from a catalogue stretching back 25 years, including the classic “After the Goldrush.”

The more belligerent new songs dealt with urban decay, poverty and crime, crooked cops and drug abuse and mocked Bush’s campaign promises with the lines, “We’ve got a thousand points of light for the homeless man, a kinder, gentler, machine-gun hand.”

He finished with the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song “Ohio” about the shooting of four students by National Guardsmen on the Kent State University campus in 1969, dedicating it to the Chinese student seen on television screens around the world defying a tank during the suppression of the pro-democracy movement in Beijing in June.