Publicist Mickey Cottrell and Neil Young Trunk Show director Jonathan Demme got waffle-ironed when they were informed just after midnight that the Toronto Film Festival “has double booked screenings at 2 pm tomorrow, when ours had been set.” Two replacement slots have been offered, and I’m sure it’ll all work out after the dust settles. But this plus the oddly clueless Toronto no-show by Neil Young, as reported last Friday by the Toronto Star‘s Peter Howell, makes this concert film’s TIFF experience seem like one of the all-time debacles.
“They say rock ‘n’ roll never forgets,” Howell wrote, “but someone in charge of Neil Young’s itinerary evidently did.
“Young tells the Star he never intended to visit hometown Toronto to promote his new concert movie, The Neil Young Trunk Show, in a free public event Monday at Yonge-Dundas Square.
“The official TIFF schedule has Young as a confirmed attendee, along with director Jonathan Demme.
“‘This is the first time I ever heard I was supposed to be there,’ Young says from his California ranch home near San Rafael. ‘I didn’t know I was a scheduled event.'”