Neil Young announces tour, playing songs he’s never played live before

Neil Young has announced a tour of the West Coast of the US, his first tour in four years, at which he will play songs rarely or never aired live before.

The solo acoustic tour will begin next month with 13 gigs currently announced, and as Rolling Stone reports, Young shared the news with paid subscribers of his Neil Young Archives website on a Zoom call this week (June 7).

On the call, he revealed that he will be playing around 15 songs that he has rarely or never played live before.

“I don’t want to come back and do the same songs again,” he 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…”

He added: “They’re not new songs. 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.”

See the dates below.

JULY 2023
1 – Los Angeles, CA – John Anson Ford
2 – Los Angeles, CA – John Anson Ford
4 – Los Angeles, CA – John Anson Ford
5 – Los Angeles, CA – John Anson Ford
7 – Santa Barbara, CA – Santa Barbara Bowl
8 – Paso Robles, CA – Vina Robles Amphitheatre
11 – San Diego, CA – The Shell
13 – Los Angeles, CA – The Greek Theatre
15 – Berkeley, CA – The Greek
17 – Bend, OR – Hayden Homes Amphitheater
18 – Ridgefield, WA – RV Inn Style Resorts Amphitheater
20 – Auburn, WA – White River Amphitheatre
23 – Napa, CA – Oxbow RiverStage

Earlier this year, Young made his live comeback at a march and rally in support of the United For Old Growth campaign, which is looking to stop the Canadian government from allowing logging companies from destroying old-growth forests.

Since then, he has reunited with Stephen Stills at a show in Los Angeles in April and performed at Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday party alongside Snoop Dogg, Beck and more.

Neil Young’s last public performance these was in September 2019, when the veteran artist headlined a benefit concert in Lake Hughes, California alongside Norah Jones and Father John Misty.

Since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic in early 2020, Young said he wouldn’t tour until the virus was “beat” and called on promoters to cancel “super-spreader” gigs.

Last year, Young confirmed he would not be performing at Farm Aid 2022 because “I don’t think it is safe in the pandemic.”

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