The David Crosby seal of approval never came easily. This was a man who once called The Rolling Stones “a grotesque ego trip”, who told a fan of his who’d painted his portrait, “don’t quit your day job”, and who once dismissed heaven itself as “overrated”. Quite marvelously, he described it as too “cloudy” for his tastes. All this to say that Crosby was never in the business of holding his tongue when it could lash out at something instead. This wasn’t a habit that healed with age either.
The man was almost sociopathically blunt, saying whatever was on his mind way up to his dotage. Put it this way, the man was an incredible follow on Twitter, even if his relentless, unashamed negativity did get somewhat depressing after a while. Nevertheless, he had lived one hell of a life. One that may have been slightly more successful if he’d kept silent with nothing nice to say, but when you’ve had the career he’s had, who’s keeping track?
He’d been in The Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, along with having a very successful solo career, and had managed to do so on his terms. If you could have all that success without compromising your beliefs, you’d do the same, too. Besides, there were a few things that Crosby could admit to liking with his whole chest. He was a die-hard Beatles fan, for example. He always had very nice things to say about Joni Mitchell, too.
In an interview with Relix, we discovered something else that got his rare seal of approval, and it was something quite out of the ordinary. A venue. This coming from a man who, from time to time, had talked about touring with the same venom he talked about…well, basically, everything else in his life. So, what venue was good enough for ‘The Croz’?
What was David Crosby’s favourite venue?
Something of a giveaway is the very fact that the interview (reportedly the last that Crosby ever gave) is promoting a live record. Live At The Capitol Theatre was recorded in 2018, supporting his record Here If You Listen, released the same year. That they chose the concert from the Capitol Theatre, based in Port Chester, New York, is no accident. Crosby was asked whether there was something about the venue that led to the show being released as an album, and he had this to say.
“We arrived at the Capitol Theatre, which is a good venue. It sounds good. It feels good. So on the last night, we were playing the best place. When the four of us listened back later, we all felt that it was exceptional and worthy of being put out. The acoustics in the Capitol Theatre are really good. Besides that, the vibe is really good—that’s a lot more nebulous, but it’s definitely there. You don’t have to take my word for it. Ask anybody that’s played there.”
Trust David Crosby to end a tribute to a wonderful old theatre with an air of vague defensiveness, but he’s not wrong. Jerry Garcia himself listed the venue as one of his favourites, and if a theatre is good enough for those two icons of hippy culture, I’d say that it’s good enough for anyone.
