The large and not necessarily scintillating reputations of all four members of this earliest of North American supergroups — and of Bill Graham, the great rock impressario who was was running the tour — preceded them by years when they arrived at the University of Toronto’s Varsity Stadium. CSNY were a supergroup of super-sized egos, an accident waiting to happen at every turn of their collective career.

In my mind, at least, they were well on their way to becoming pop music’s poster boys for childishness, and not the sweet, innocent kind. Fat rock egos tended to loll in the boorish and the churlish; CSNY specialised in the spoiled brattish.

They were, however, irrevocably talented. This was an amazing show (”low” on my list mostly because the scene overwhelmed the music), starting well before CSN&Y hit the stage, when Graham, flexing the fan-management skills he’d developed at the Fillmore auditoriums east and west, conducted an impressive exercise in crowd control. They’d decided to move the audience closer to the stage, and they did it a few metres at a time, with Graham walking us through it with stage directions, so that complete mayhem didn’t ensue. I don’t this sort of thing would work today.

With the help of Tim Drummond on bass, Joe Lala from Manassas on percussion and the always great Russ Kunkel on drums, David Crosby, Steven Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young opened with “Love the One You’re With”, and so we did. Promptly the sour media reports were forgotten. Who cared that each of these four guys had a balloon ego as delicate as their collective harmonies, or that their harmonies were already getting pretty brittle by that point? The music was intimate and intimately familiar and they did a tremendous job on every tune.

CSNY did 30 shows in two summer months, earned something like $8 million, and bickered right from the start, largely because no matter how good a job Graham did as ringmaster, once they got on stage they just indulged. Fortunately they indulged the fans as well as themselves.

We got “Wooden Ships”, “Immigration Man”, “Cowgirl in the Sand”, “Change Partners”, “Traces”, “Grave Concern”, “Black Queen”, “Almost Cut My Hair” and — ahhhh — “Ohio”. Then they unplugged again for “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”, “Helplessly Hoping”, “Blackbird”, Neil’s “Human Highway” and Graham’s “Prison Song”.

Each member had a segment for his solo stuff. Stills was pretty impressive on banjo with “4 + 20″, not so impressive with his lengthy Latin conga jams. (It’s just silly hearing white guys yell ariba!) Crosby sang “Carry Me”, “Guinnevere” and Joni Mitchell’s “For Free”, Nash did “Sleep Song” and “Our House”. And Young played “Love Hard Blues”, a terrific “Don’t Be Denied”, “Long May You Run” and, best of all in this set,”A Man Needs a Maid”, the whole exquisitely mournful 12 minutes.

Electrified once more, the quartet reassembled for “Deja Vu” and “Pre-Road Downs”. “Long Time Gone” and “Carry On” closed the show, only for the band to reignite for “Chicago”.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable feast and an interesting experience in massive outdoor entertainment, though I’d already seen bigger at Watkins Glen (review coming up). The difference, of course, was that this was all kept well in hand. The performers knew exactly what they were doing and how things would play out, even if they did toy with the pacing, and the fans knew what to expect. Chaos didn’t stand a chance, regardless of how many people they packed into the football stadium.

* COMING SOON: The Compleat Dorseyland Concert Directory *