Young’s passion sparks his old band

Freedom isn’t free, the slogan goes, and no kidding -- speech alone can set you back $251.50.

That was the top ticket price at Sunday’s Irvine stop on Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s “Freedom of Speech ‘06” tour, named, it’s safe to assume, because CSNY want you to raise your voice against the Iraq war, George W. Bush and various injustices -- to “speak out against the madness,” as they sang this night during “Long Time Gone.”

The famed quartet wasn’t advocating complete freedom of speech, though -- just the kind they agreed with, judging by the info tables set up in the venue in support of assorted progressive causes. This wasn’t exactly like those old Lollapalooza fests, where ideological foes over subjects including abortion sat at tables across from one another.

There were other eye-rolling ironies: Neil Young spitting lines from “The Restless Consumer” (off his excellent new polemical album “Living With War”), a song that partially rails against advertising and mindless spending -- to a crowd that, on the way to their seats, had to negotiate a minefield of salespeople hawking cellphone plans, trips to Hawaii, even car insurance.

Really, though, the only things in need of pushing were David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash -- and Young was glad to provide the impetus. This is the foursome’s third tour since 2000, and Young’s demanding approach, ripped-from-the-headlines “Living With War” lyrics and sheer guitar volume stirred up something in his comrades that invigorated them far beyond what they’ve done on tours without him.

It was quite a kick during “Wooden Ships,” for example, to see the normally staid Nash caught up in the foreboding whirl of one of Young’s song-ending feedback orgies, the kind that he perfected with his sometime backing band Crazy Horse -- and then Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young together, jamming in a tight circle, guitars screeching, wailing and shredding as if they were in a Sonic Youth tribute band. Young usually puts a lot of work into his shows, and this night was no exception, but his three cohorts haven’t been made to sweat this much on a stage in years -- decades, maybe.

The show’s first half was pretty Young-centric, but the second half became something of a role reversal, focusing more on those renowned CSNY vocal harmonies on such ballads as “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” and “Guinnevere.”

It was a nice break from the evening’s politics, which sometimes drifted into heavy-handedness, such as the video montages from Young’s “Living With War” network, a faux-CNN that flashed a running tally of the U.S war dead. And performing “Living With War’s” contentious standout anthem “Let’s Impeach the President” is one thing, but performing it as the song’s lyrics are scrawled across a video screen was a bit much. “Lighten up, guys!” bellowed one wag in the crowd, apparently miffed that he wasn’t getting his $251.50 worth. Perhaps by the time they got around to playing Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World,” he had.