Neil Young has finally commented on the recent Crazy Horse tour cancellation – see what he had to say below.
- READ MORE: Neil Young & Crazy Horse – ‘Barn’ review: rugged and rural beauty, with a sense of hope
In late June, Young and the band took to his Neil Young Archives website to announce the cancellation of their remaining shows. The blog post shared revealed that a couple of band members fell ill following their gig at Detroit’s Pine Knob and would have to take “a big unplanned break.”
In a recent Zoom conference call for his Neil Young Archives followers – captured via video on Reddit, Young addressed the cancellations, recapping how he felt before and during most of the shows that were played: “I was doing great and we were moving right along. Everybody’s loving the shows. Then I just woke up one morning on the bus and I said, ‘I can’t do this. I gotta stop.’ It was like I felt sick when I thought of going on stage.”
He continued: “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. What matters to me is the art of playing, and the music. That’s what matters. That’s what people loved. That’s what they come to see. But if that’s not there, me going is not happening. My body told me to not do it.”
Neil Young ZOOM Conference
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He then shared an updated on how he’s feeling, and the health of his Crazy Horse members: “But now I’m starting to feel like I could do it again and that’s a great feeling. Not all of Crazy Horse — this happened to a couple of us, and we’re not all the way back. Crazy Horse will be back, god willing. And we’ll play more.”
As for his plans to hit the road again on a larger tour, Young shared: “We haven’t announced any shows yet, but they are mostly theaters that I played before, little theaters, and then I can play a little bit of acoustic, and then have the band come out and play. They’ll probably be on the East Coast and then going towards Michigan and then Ohio, and then a few other ones. They won’t be marathons. They won’t be two hours and 10 minutes of blasting rock and roll like it was with Crazy Horse.”
Following the tour’s cancellation, the ‘Rockin’ In The Free World’ singer shared that he will be returning 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.”
