Neil Young is set to go on his first solo tour since pre-pandemic times, hitting intimate theaters across the West Coast with a setlist of songs he’s never played live. Dates and venues for the special showings have not yet been revealed — and are expected to be officially announced June 9 — but the 77-year-old shared other details on a Zoom for paid Patron subscribers to the Neil Young Archives.
“I don’t want to come back and do the same songs again,” Young said, according to a report by Rolling Stone. “I’ll feel like I was on some sort of carnival ride. I’d rather be doing these others songs I haven’t done…I won’t have to compare how I’m doing ‘Heart of Gold’ to [how I played it in] 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020…”
Young has prepared a setlist of roughly 15 rarities comprised of songs that he says “apply to my life right now,” including the 1982 “Trans” outtake “If You Got Love,” “Prime of Life” from 1994’s “Sleeps With Angels,” and “Song X” from his 1995 Pearl Jam collaboration “Mirror Ball.”
Fans can still expect to hear Young play his most beloved, well-known hits though he estimates that 80% of the performance will be dedicated to his die-hard fans. “They’re not new songs,” he said. “They’re old songs. But I wake up with them in my head every morning. They are songs that apply to my life right now and apply to everyone’s lives in this era that we’re in. Some of them were written 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago, but never really played live.”
The tour is said to kickstart with a four or five-night residency at a “tiny, little unknown theater that’s close to one of the most well-known theaters in the world” on the West Coast, with the official locations to be confirmed tomorrow.
Young’s last public performance before this year was at Farm Aid in September 2019. After the pandemic halted all live performances, the singer-songwriter did not budge over safety concerns regarding the virus and actively fought against misinformation and inaccuracies surrounding vaccinations — even going so far as having his music removed from Spotify in a boycott against Joe Rogan’s podcast.
Elsewhere, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer has announced “Official Release Series Volume 5,” the fifth installment of his remastered albums series, will be dropping July 14 via Warner Music. The box set features albums “Freedom,” “Ragged Glory”, “Weld,” and “ARC,” and will be released as numbered vinyl and CD box sets.
