Neil Young performs at a benefit concert in Mountain View, Calif., on Oct. 24, 2010.TONY AVELAR/The Associated Press
If you're planning to attend a Neil Young show any time in the near future, you should probably keep your response to a minimum.
According to The New York Times, the Canadian music legend chastised his own audience on Monday night when they began clapping along to one of his songs during a performance in New York.
Young was performing in the Big Apple as part of a four-date engagement at Carnegie Hall. As the Times reports, he reprimanded the crowd more than once, both for clapping and talking between songs.
When the audience attempted to clap along during Young's soulful protest anthem Ohio, a 1970 hit for Crosby, Stills Nash & Young, but didn't quite get the rhythm right, the 68-year-old singer-songwriter reportedly barked, "Wrong!"
Added Young: "It's something that you probably don't know, but there's a hell of a distance between you and me."
Was Young making reference to the crowd's non-syncopated rhythm or suggesting that he exists on an alternate existential plane? The man's a mystery wrapped up in an enigma.
Soon after, Young was adjusting his harmonica between songs when he noticed that audience members in the balcony were chatting.
"No, you paid real good money to get in here, so you should be able to listen to each other," he reportedly snapped.
Be warned: The Young concert tour rolls into Canada next week with stops in Toronto (January 12), Winnipeg (January 16), Regina (January 17) and Calgary (January 19).