OK, I’m now expecting to see Lord Lucan riding into town on a unicorn, surrounded by a squadron of flying pigs. After years of promises, cancellations, delays, “coming soon” and who knows what else, Neil Young has finally unleashed the first in his long-awaited archives series. OK, it’s not the multi-disc box set I was expecting, but since Neil has made a career out of doing the unexpected, I suppose I should have expected that. Rumour has it that Neil has an enormous collection of tapes in his vaults – concerts, unreleased songs, demos and probably other stuff too.

For the first release, he’s come up with something for the fans – a never before released live performance featuring the original Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten. There are only six tracks, but they do include a 16 minute version of Cowgirl in the Sand. This is an essential item for Neil Young fans, and worth a listen for everyone else.

There are two versions on sale – a standard CD, and the CD plus a DVD-A (DVD audio) version of the album. No video on that, but you will get better sound if you’ve got the right kit.

Of course, it’ll probably be five years before we get another archive item, so make the most of this one!