Neil Young Plotting Summer Solo Acoustic Tour

Although details won’t be announced until tomorrow (July 9), Neil Young will return to the road early next month. The rock legend told his Neil Young Archives subscribers in a private Zoom session yesterday that he will embark on a solo acoustic tour featuring material he’s never or rarely performed live, and that the run will begin with a multiple-night, west coast stint at a “tiny, little unknown theater that’s close to one of the most well-known theaters in the world.”

Songs tipped to appear include “Prime of Life” from Sleeps With Angels, the Trans outtake “If You Got Love,” and “Song X” from his 1995 Pearl Jam collaboration Mirror Ball, which he played nearly every night on the lone international tour in support of that album a few months following its release.

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“I don’t want to come back and do the same songs again,” Young said, per Rolling Stone. “I’ll feel like I was on some sort of carnival ride. I’d rather be doing these other songs I haven’t done. I won’t have to compare how I’m doing ‘Heart of Gold’ to [how it was played in] 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020.”

Young will still play some more familiar songs but said he was inspired to go heavy on ones “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 artist took three-plus years off the road before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, a streak broken in February when he appeared unannounced at a forest preservation really in British Columbia. Since then, he joined longtime bandmate Stephen Stills at the latter’s annual autism benefit in Los Angeles in April and also dropped by Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday bash at the Hollywood Bowl.

As previously reported, Young is one of many high-profile guests on Crazy Horse bandmate Nils Lofgren’s new album, Mountains, which will be released on July 21.

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.

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