Watch Neil Young perform 1977 track ‘Hey Babe’ live for the first time ever

Neil Young has performed the elusive 1977 song ‘Hey Babe’ live for the first time ever – watch fan-shot footage of the debut performance below.

• READ MORE: Neil Young & Crazy Horse – ‘Barn’ review: rugged and rural beauty, with a sense of hope

In 1977, Young wrote and released ‘Hey Babe’ along with Crazy Horse, Linda Ronstadt and Nicolette Larson as part of his eighth studio album ‘American Stars ‘N Bars’. For the 47 years since its release, the song was just one of two tracks off the record that had never been performed live, alongside ‘Will To Love’.

While performing at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, New York on September 24, Young surprised fans by performing the song for the first time ever, just six songs into his setlist.

Watch footage of ‘Hey Babe’ below.

Last month, Young finally commented on his recently axed Crazy Horse tour dates, explaining that it was due to an undisclosed illness.

“My body was telling me, ‘You gotta stop.’ So I listened to my body. Then it gets into all the legal matters: ‘You got this, you got that, people bought tickets, they did this, they did that.’ I understand that,” he told fans.

Following the tour’s cancellation, the ‘Rockin’ In The Free World’ singer returned to the stage to perform at this year’s edition of Farm Aid at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga Springs, New York on September 21.

In June, the band released a new archival album, ‘Early Daze’. In May, Young took to his Neil Young Archives website to announce the record, which was recorded in 1969 with Crazy Horse.

The band also last released newly written music in 2021 with ‘Barn’, which NME gave four stars: “As Young wrote in his 2012 memoir Waging Heavy Peace: “There is a big wind blowing today and I’m part of it. I want to make a difference.” This record lives up to those words. Of all the messages we should listen to on this album, the overriding one is that Neil Young remains as vital as he always has been.”

The post Watch Neil Young perform 1977 track ‘Hey Babe’ live for the first time ever appeared first on NME.