Neil Young will announce Friday that he is embarking on his first tour in four years – but fans should not expect a night of his greatest hits.
The 77-year-old Canadian singer told Patreon subscribers to the Neil Young Archives on Wednesday that 80 percent of the setlist will be made up of material familiar to his most diehard fans.
“They’re not new songs. They’re old songs. But I wake up with them in my head every morning,” Young said. “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.”
According to Rolling Stone, among the songs will be Trans outtake “If You Got Love,” “Prime of Life” from Sleeps With Angels and “Song X” from his Pearl Jam collaboration Mirror Ball.
Young explained: “I don’t want to come back and do the same songs again. 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 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020…”
Young said the tour will start on the West Coast with a short residency at a “tiny, little unknown theatre that’s close to one of the most well known theatres in the world.”
Young’s first public performance since September 2019 consisted of two songs at an old growth forest rally in Victoria, B.C. in February. In April, he performed at the Light Up the Blues charity show in Los Angeles and at Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday bash at the Hollywood Bowl.