Editing Rust Never Sleeps (section)

==Recording==
The acoustic portions of the album including, "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)", "Thrasher" and "Ride My Llama" were recorded live in [[San Francisco]] at the [[The Boarding House (nightclub)|Boarding House]] between May 24 and 28, 1978. Young played ten acoustic sets over five days. Young used the occasion to play several songs in concert for the first time. In addition to the three tracks on the album he also debuted "Powderfinger", "Shots" and "The Ways of Love" and played the rarities "Out of My Mind" and "I Believe in You" on piano. "Shots" would later appear on ''[[Re·ac·tor]]'' in 1981; "The Ways of Love" would first surface on ''[[Freedom (Neil Young album)|Freedom]]'' in 1989. The concert takes were heavily overdubbed in the studio. For example, Young would later double the guitar part to "Ride My Llama" in the studio. 

Two songs from the album were not recorded live: "Pocahontas" had been recorded solo in August 1976 during the ''[[Hitchhiker (album)|Hitchhiker]]'' session, with later overdubs in September 1977 at Triiad studios for the album ''Oceanside/Countryside'', an early version of ''[[Comes a Time]]''. "Sail Away" was also recorded at Triiad as a solo track, and received full band overdubs during the ''Comes a Time'' recording sessions in November 1977.<ref name="hrc">{{Cite web |title=HyperRust chronology |url=http://hyperrust.org/Chronology/The70s.html|website=Hyperrust.org |access-date=May 7, 2008}}</ref>

Following the May 27 performances at The Boarding House, Young joined Devo onstage at the punk club [[Mabuhay Gardens]]. The following day, they collaborated on the first electric performance of "[[Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)]]" at [[Different Fur]] Studios for the film ''Human Highway''. Young would later push Crazy Horse to match Devo's intensity of performance when recording their version of the song for the album.{{sfn|McDonough|2002|pp=531–532}}

The electric sets were recorded during the Neil Young/Crazy Horse tour in October 1978, with overdubs added later.{{sfn|McDonough|2002|pp=538}} The same performance of "[[Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)]]" is used on both ''Rust Never Sleeps'' and ''[[Live Rust]]'', with the former receiving significant overdubs. Audience noise is removed from the album as much as possible, although it is clearly audible at certain points, most noticeably on the opening and closing songs.  

Young adopted a new look for the concerts, with much shorter hair and wearing a sport coat and bolo tie. The concerts incorporated several visual stunts: ridiculously oversized amplifiers, [[Star Wars]] [[Jawa (Star Wars)|Jawa]]-inspired "road-eye" characters roaming the stage and 3D "Rust-O-Vision" glasses were given out to the audience.<ref name="auto"/> Young would also appear onstage alongside three large wood-carved Indian statues from the set of ''[[Human Highway]]''. One of the statues, "Woody", would accompany Young on future tours.<ref name="auto"/>

The 1978 tour featured an abrasive style of guitar playing influenced by the punk rock [[zeitgeist]] of the late 1970s that Young saw as a wake up call for a rock music world which, in his opinion had become predictable and overdone.{{sfn|McDonough|2002|pp=522}} The electric sets provided a reenergized response to the [[punk rock]] revolution and, were in stark contrast from Young's previous, folk-inspired album ''Comes a Time''.{{sfn|McDonough|2002|pp=529–537}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=Neil Young at the Encyclopedia Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Neil-Young#ref1030488 |access-date=March 27, 2023 |publisher=britannica.com}}</ref>