This Is Spinal Tap has a lot to answer for. Since Reiner, the rock documentary (or rockumentary, if you will) has been fatally punctured. Every time a musician opens their mouth you hang on for the self-deflating cliché and the cucumber trouser bulge. Which probably explains why these curious artefacts are seldom any longer made, and why even then it's for the DTV market (evidence: the recent Radiohead film). And how come they are almost never ever helmed by anyone with a name. Martin Scorsese handled The Last Waltz, and Jonathan Demme, of course, marshalled Talking Heads' marvellous Stop Making Sense, and that, my dears, was about that. Until shock-haired indie supremo Jim Jarmusch made a bizarre surrealist western he called Dead Man.

Mr Jarmusch showed his grisly, languorous picture (The Outlaw Jose Wales out of Eraserhead) to one Mr Neil Young, and Mr Young duly larded it in over-driven guitar in an unpopular but shining gem from his never less than fascinating crown. From that came an initial offer for a promo video, and eventually this, a 107 minute document of Mr Young's 1996 tour with long-time cohorts Crazy Horse.

So, now the warning: you might like Jim Jarmusch, you might admire Down By Law and Stranger Than Paradise, even love the wondrous Mystery Train, but if you ain't a fan of the Horse's long-reaching and decidedly eclectic career, best give it a wide berth.

There are a number of staged interviews with the four members (Young is adamant he's just another guitarist), Young's journo father, their manager. There's some backstage puff, even some fabulous 1976 UK TV footage, but the heart of the beast is concert stuff. Young and his band banging out, if not the hits exactly (no 'Cortez', no 'Powderfinger'), then at least a fair cross-section of back catalogue: rather affected on record, 'F*!#in' Up' explodes in this extended workout; the drug horrors of 'Tonight's The Night' burn sulphurously; while the closing 'Like A Hurricane' (cut between mid-70s London and today) is positively incendiary. We may have seen Young wrench all the strings off before, but it never fails to impress.

Blown up for cinema, Jarmusch's Super 8, like the music, is gritty, grainy, frequently out of focus but never less than compelling. And there are some fine moments when he injects himself into the action, gatecrashing hotel rooms or explaining the Old Testament to a bemused Young on the tour bus. You can't sum up thirty years in a few questions, guitarist Frank 'Poncho' Sampedro tells the director, and, at the risk of falling for a cliché, he's right. It's a fan's film, yes, but far more than just some worthy 'Later' performance shtick. "Made loud to be played loud," it's Jim Jarmusch having fun and Neil Young doing what he does best. And that'll do nicely.