Neil Young and his new band the Chrome Hearts kicked off their 2025 Love Earth Tour on Wednesday night in Rattvik, Sweden.
The set list, featured a number of songs Young has not performed live for many years. He played a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song called “Looking Forward” for the first time since 2000, as well as a Crazy Horse number titled “Sun Green” that hadn’t been played since 2004. Young’s set also included classics like “Harvest Moon,” “Old Man” and more.
Earlier this year, Young, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada, spoke openly about his concerns with touring in Europe.
“When I go to play music in Europe, if I talk about Donald J Trump, I may be one of those returning to America who is barred or put in jail to sleep on a cement floor with an aluminum blanket,” he said. “That is happening all the time now. Countries have new advice for those returning to America.” “If I come back from Europe and am barred, can’t play my U.S.A. tour, all of the folks who bought tickets will not be able to come to a concert by me,” he continued. “That’s right folks. If you say anything bad about Trump or his administration, you may be barred from re-entering U.S.A. if you are Canadian. If you are a dual citizen like me, who knows? We’ll all find that out together.”
A 79-year-old Neil Young makes his way front of stage to receive a rapturous ovation that echoes across the remarkable meteor crater-like venue from a sell-out crowd of devotees, many of whom have travelled the globe to be here.
Dressed for the cool Swedish evening in grey plaid shirt, charcoal jeans and Casey Jones engineer hat, Young and his bandmates in The Chrome Hearts seem ready for business. This night, a Neil Young show in Europe (the first of 13, including a Glastonbury headline slot and a visit to Hyde Park in July), seemed to be a long way away when, last summer, A tourof last year was aborted, with Young stating latterly that he quit because he was so exhausted and (literally) just couldn’t go on.
So much has happened since Young last came to Europe in the summer of 2019, not least Covid and the return of Trump. Back then, he was joined by Promise Of The Real and they make up the core of this largely much younger Chrome Hearts. They are joined by the masterful Spooner Oldham: the 82-year-old Muscle Shoals veteran who played organ for Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge, Aretha Franklin and countless others, and whose association with Young goes back decades. Dalhalla feels like the perfect venue in which to begin this latest touring odyssey.
Young’s voracious appetite for getting his house in order got a kick-start in those years post Covid, archival releases coming thick and fast (almost 30 of them) whilst finding time to record three new records with Crazy Horse before his latest release “Talkin To The Trees”. That the new album was entirely absent from the set felt like a classic Neil Young move, as he delivered a group of songs that could define the word ‘random’.
To shift gear from solo acoustic opener “Sugar Mountain”, still such a bittersweet take on adolescence 60 years on, into “Greendale’s” raging eco-hymn, “Be The Rain” was a move few would have predicted. That Young would then lay waste to the electric songs that followed, with the ferocious energy of someone 30 or 40 years younger, was as electrifying as the music he played.
That salvo of songs, dipping back to the very best of prime Crazy Horse, may even have been a bit of unfinished business after that abandoned tour of 2024 – here The Chrome Hearts followed their leader all the way; Corey McCormick’s watertight bass, Anthony LoGerfo’s crisp drums, and Micah Nelson’s second guitar melding into the ether, in a dazzling onslaught (close your eyes and it could almost have been the Horse). Nelson too was at the heart of it all in an early standout, a fierce “When You Dance, I Can Really Love”, stood stabbing at the stand-up piano keys, just as Jack Nitzsche did way back in 1970.
There was a lot of talk beforehand that perhaps, much like Bruce Springsteen’s recent onstage tirades against Trump, But while he returned to “Greendale” for corporate polemic “Sun Green”, barking into his mic-ed up megaphone “there’s corruption on the highest floor”, outside of the songs themselves, Neil Young said little bar a customary “how ya doin’?”
The sheer relentlessness and pace of the opening electric burst could never last, so it was almost a relief to see Young settled down on the drum riser, have a rest with acoustic guitar in hand, for “The Needle And The Damage Done”, followed by “Harvest Moon”, one of the few moments where Spooner Oldham’s lush playing could really be heard and enjoyed.
The sometimes eclectic set veered off into two songs from two reunions with CSNY – from 1988’s “American Dream” album, “Name of Love”, and, for the first time in 25 years, “Looking Forward“, from the largely mediocre album of the same name. Tonight, with double acoustic guitars, the most gentle bass, brushed drums and some heavenly harmonies, this was a song that sounded so very pretty and so very far removed from the ugly album cut of 1999. Muscular, punchy takes on two further Crazy Horse staples dove-tailed into each other, “Love And Only Love” and “Like A Hurricane“, both sounding huge, Neil Young hunched over the ever trusty Old Black, draining every last note he could muster from within the belly of his beloved guitar.
A wistful, thoughtful “Old Man” brought the set to a close after sharp 90 minutes, before the one thing that could be predicted on this sometimes curious opening night, the only encore of the evening: “Rockin’ In the Free World”. It was boisterous and angry, yet, ultimately, triumphant finale and the crowd stood as one, peace signs and raised fists stretching high into the Swedish night. With a wave to the crowd and a warm embrace for Spooner Oldham, Neil Young left the stage, and the first leg of the Love Earth Tour 2025 was done.
In many ways it felt like a bespoke ‘greatest hits’ set, but with enough twists and turns to keep the audience guessing. There’s certainly room to maneouvre a few songs in and out, but Neil Young may stick rather than twist too much as the long summer on the road progresses. Relentless and loud, delicate and soft and yes, ragged and glorious: Neil Young remains a unique yin-yang force of nature.
The Chrome Hearts shine: Micah Nelson, Corey McCormick, Anthony LoGerfo and Neil Young on stage at Dalhalla, Rättvik, Sweden, June 18th, 2025.
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