Neil Young Reveals Solo Touring Plans
Neil Young is set to go on his first solo tour since before the pandemic, he revealed in a video chat for subscribers to his Neil Young Archives service.
Young revealed that he plans to hit intimate theatres across the West Coast of the United States 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 9 June.
“I don’t want to come back and do the same songs again,” Young said. “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 told fans that 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.
“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.”
Last week Young announced the latest of his Official Release Series of album box sets, due 14 July.
Official Release Series Volume 5 is a stunning collection of four albums that begins with the exciting renaissance that came with the release of Freedom in 1989 and continues with the unequalled exploration of collections Ragged Glory (1990), Weld (1991) and Arc (1991). In many ways, it is a musical travelogue of how Young saw the future and opened up creative worlds for the use of sound and originality which had not been used before.