Neil Young performed live for the first time in four years this weekend at an environmental rally.
The folk rock legend surprised the crowd at an old-growth logging protest rally in Victoria, British Columbia on Saturday, February 25th (as per Rolling Stone).
After an introduction from his wife Daryl Hannah, Young made up for lost time with performances of ‘Comes a Time’ and ‘Heart of Gold’. A few clips from Young’s set at the rally are available below.
It’s a welcome return to live performing from one of the greatest performers of his generation. Just as recently as last September, Young pulled out of a scheduled show at Farm Aid, insisting it wasn’t safe to perform due to the continuing pandemic. “I miss it very much,” he said on his website at the time.
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Young has been foregoing live performances since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the singer-songwriter being a highly vocal supporter of vaccine education and decrier of anti-vaccination conspiracies.
But he seems to be firmly back on the live circuit now. On April 22nd, Young will headline the Light Up the Blues charity concert in Los Angeles. The autism fundraiser is the work of Stephen Stills and his family, who have been putting on the event since 2013.
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“We’ll be there to ‘Light up the Blues’ with Stephen, [his wife] Kristen, and the family, doing our first show in four years with old friends for our autistic people around the world,” Young announced earlier this month.
Young and Stills will headline together, backed by Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real and more. The concert will benefit Autism Speaks, a charity “dedicated to promoting solutions, across the spectrum and throughout the life span, for the needs of individuals with autism and their families.”
For more on this topic, follow the Live Music Observer or the Classic Rock Observer.
