Live At Fillmore East, 1969 (CD)

After famously playing their second show at Woodstock in August 1969, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, and Neil Young spent the rest of the year touring and writing songs for what would become CSNY’s 1970 debut, DÉJÀ VU. A newly discovered multi-track recording of the band’s September 20, 1969, concert at the historic Fillmore East in New York City captures an early moment from that first tour.

Recorded only a month after Woodstock, the September 20 concert was the band’s fourth show in two days at the Fillmore East and featured both acoustic and electric sets.

The setlist spotlights soon-to-be classics from CSN’s self-titled debut and Young’s EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE with “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” “Helplessly Hoping,” and “Down By The River.” The concert also features early versions of two future DÉJÀ VU tracks. Stills delivers a stunning solo acoustic performance of his introspective ballad “4 + 20,” followed by Nash, alone at the organ, singing “Our House” to its inspiration, Joni Mitchell, who was in the Fillmore audience.

In the acoustic set, Young gave a nod to Buffalo Springfield (his first band with Stills) playing “I’ve Loved Her So Long,” a song he wrote for the group’s final album, 1968’s Last Time Around.

The electric set is powerful and intense, highlighted by expansive versions of “Wooden Ships,” “Long Time Gone,” and “Sea Of Madness.” The band closes the show with “Find The Cost Of Freedom,” a new song by Stills that later would be released as the B-side to the protest anthem “Ohio.”

Stills and Young compiled and mixed the original eight-track concert recordings at Sunset Sound studios in Los Angeles.