Neil Young has come clean on why he pulled the plug on the second leg his Love Earth tour with Crazy Horse in June.
In a Zoom Q&A with subscribers of NeilYoungArchives.com, he said, “A couple of us really hit a wall. I just woke up one morning on the bus and I said, ‘I can’t do this, I gotta stop.’ I felt sick when I thought of going onstage. My body was telling me, ‘You gotta stop.’ And 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, my going isn’t happening. My body told me to not do it.”
So, basically Young has once again jettisoned Crazy Horse and he's switching gears and teaming up with guitarist Micah Nelson and the Promise of the Real rhythm section for a U.S. tour this fall.
“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 & roll like it was with Crazy Horse.”
But, he also says he'll get back on the Horse. “Crazy Horse will be back, God willing. We did a good service to the name Crazy Horse [on the tour] and paid respect to what that was. But when it got to the point where we had done it, and now we were doing it again, that’s why I stopped. That can’t be controlled. You can’t tell when that’s going to happen. I’m sorry to all the people who bought tickets who couldn’t go, but I listened to my body."
This is typical Neil, jumping from one project to the next, which he discussed with us in 1999 when he surprisingly rejoined Crosby, Stills & Nash after 11 years.
Next up for Young is Farm Aid on September 21st in Saratoga Springs, New York.