Rockin’ On the Dock of the Bay : What a Pair: Neil Young Joins Forces With Booker T.’s R&B; Band

Remember “This Note’s for You,” the 1988 Neil Young song spoofing rock’s growing dependency on corporate sponsorship?

Well, Young’s endearing enthusiasm Thursday night at the Pacific Amphitheatre could best be described by a revised song title: “This note’s for me .”

The most you can normally expect of a performer is to be inspiring, but the real high is being in the presence of an artist who himself appears inspired.

Such was the case Thursday.

The reason: Young was backed by Booker T. and the MGs, the great Memphis band that supplied the seductive instrumental flavor to ‘60s records by such gifted Stax and Atlantic artists as Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and Sam & Dave.

Any singer would be thrilled to step into the recording studio for just one session with the reunited quartet, whose lineup consists of Booker T. Jones on organ, Steve Cropper on guitar, Duck Dunn on bass and Jim Keltner replacing the late Al Jackson Jr. on drums.

But Young is fortunate enough to have the band with him for an entire tour, which continues with a show tonight at the Los Angeles Sports Arena--and his enthusiasm was evident at every point.

Young’s squealing, siren-like solos were so intense that he ended up ripping the strings off the guitar at one point in his search for an even more powerful note.

“I feel like a lucky man tonight,” he said disarmingly at one point in the two-hour set.

Fresh from stealing the show at last week’s MTV Video Music Awards where he led Pearl Jam through a thundering rendition of his “Rockin’ in the Free World,” Young, dressed in his trademark T-shirt and jeans, wasted little time at the Pacific in setting an energetic tone.

From the opening roar of feedback from Young’s guitar, it was clear that this evening was not going to be an attempt to re-create the sinuous, almost understated R&B; grooves of the old Stax records.

While it would have been enticing to hear Young’s music interpreted in that classic style, it would also have been an artificial exercise bordering heavily on nostalgia.

The instrumental centerpiece of Young’s music has long been guitar assault--and Thursday’s performance was a showcase for that approach. He’s not a superb player technically, but he’s a master of sonic shading, using feedback and distortion with almost symphonic grace.

Given the dominance of his guitar, Booker T. and the MGs faced the challenge of finding a place for themselves in the torrent of sound as Young went through material as old as “Mr. Soul,” from the Buffalo Springfield days of the late ‘60s.

Yet the band responded marvelously, complementing his playing and singing by both laying down a splendid rhythm base and throwing in occasional solo punctuation.

Young started off on such a fiery note that the momentum invariably sagged when he turned to softer moments--and the momentum was further hurt by the relatively flimsy “Love You Burn.”

But Young quickly re-established the momentum, generating a captivating fury in such numbers as “Down By the River” that he seemed to not want to relinquish, causing the MGs to improvise as he stretched the songs into mini-marathons.

The audience did finally get a taste of the MGs’ pure R&B; sound during the first encore when Young sang lead on an updated arrangement of the Redding hit “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay.”

When Cropper--who co-wrote the song with Redding--ended the number by mirroring on guitar the notes being played by Young on harmonica, Cropper and Dunn broke out in disarming smiles.

In that moment, you could see this tour is something special for the MGs, too. For them, the song title Thursday could have been “This one’s for us , too.” A wonderful pairing.

Thursday’s concert opened with an unfocused set by Blind Melon, a suddenly hot neo-psychedelic band with a charismatic lead singer that needs desperately to settle on a direction if it is going to ever matter. Social Distortion, which followed, certainly has a direction (a striking Clash-meets-Johnny Cash vitality), but it lacks the distinctive personality and statements to overcome a dated feel.