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H.O.R.D.E. '97: Broad-Demo Appeal

When the H.O.R.D.E. (Horizons of Rock Developing Everywhere) Festival started as a mere "Tour" six years ago, it was already a strained acronym. Sure, the bands it embraced -- jam-loving outfits like Blues Traveler and the Spin Doctors -- were new, but hardly developing. The Grateful Dead had nailed that style decades earlier.

Last Friday and Saturday's H.O.R.D.E. line-up at Great Woods snapped the acronym clean. With 51-year-old rock legend Neil Young, Grammy winner Beck, decade-old Bay Area flakes Primus, modern-rock mannequins Toad the Wet Sprocket, and arena-rock recyclers Kula Shaker as main attractions, there was nothing developing but the H.O.R.D.E. franchise. And the only surprise of Friday's sold-out event was the number of shirts that Beck could drape over his bony frame.

H.O.R.D.E. is wise to use wide-demographic appeal to put asses in seats. It's healthy for listeners -- whose tastes are normally segregated by record-company marketing and radio-station formats -- to get exposed to unfamiliar music. So fans of piano-rock revivalist Ben Folds, whose second-stage set was pummeled by bad sound, could dig the white-James-Brown-with-a-beat-box flavor of mainstage man Beck. And those who embrace one-riff ponies Primus could see how that trio's brain-dead spiel stacks up against an equally loud but infinitely smarter punk like Young.

The festival also created an illusion of community. Thanks to the flow of concertgoers between stages (acts were staggered), faces in the crowd -- from Deadhead kids to grayhairs -- became familiar. And the vendors and politically-correct-information booths were a global-village cliché of tie-dye, hemp jewelry, Bob Marley prints, incense-selling Rastas, drum beaters, and the multi-pierced pimping '70s kitsch.

This made for great people-watching, but the people to watch were really Beck and Neil Young. Beck placed his faith in his hits, seducing the unconverted (Primus and Young fans?) with the familiar, then wowing us with old-fashioned showmanship: a highstepping band, costumes, a daredevil DJ cutting up turntables, and his own splits, moonwalks, and shtick -- peeling off shirt after shirt like layers of hidden skin as his performance uncoiled. Young and Crazy Horse, his band of 28 years, were bruising and audacious, ripping through hits and obscurities with single-minded vigor. If there were any new developments in Young's set, they were slight turns in his extended guitar improvisations. Nonetheless, he led H.O.R.D.E. '97 like a Mongol warrior, uniting this community-for-a-night with a power and passion that transcends acronyms.

-- Ted Drozdowski