Neil Young & Crazy Horse abruptly disintegrated in 2024 during the band’s Love Earth Tour. In May, two of the musicians reportedly became ill, prompting the cancellation of all bookings for the rest of the year. A prolific songwriter, Young quickly assembled a new band, the Chrome Hearts, consisting of guitarist Micah Nelson (son of Willie Nelson), bassist Corey McCormick, drummer Anthony LoGerfo and organist Spooner Oldham. Nelson had been part of last year’s Crazy Horse; previously, Nelson, McCormick and LoGerfo were members of Lukas Nelson’s recently disbanded Promise of the Real, which served as Young’s backing band in the mid-2010s. Oldham is a veteran Muscle Shoals musician. Together, they recorded Young’s 49th studio album, Talkin to the Trees, released on June 13, 2025.
A social and political activist on many fronts, Young’s environmental cause spoke loudly even before any entertainers appeared under the spotlights at Northwell at Jones Beach Theater. Fans searching for their seats saw a banner across the back of the stage that read “Love Earth,” a carry over from Young’s 2024 tour. Once again, as in 2024, Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir, a mock gospel ensemble, opened the evening with a half-hour musical set that preached anti-consumerism and campaigned for the environment. No mention was made of Young’s latest protests, including his mandate a week earlier to his record company to no longer promote his work on Facebook because Young alleges that “Meta's use of chatbots with children is unconscionable.”
Young is now 79 years old and Oldham is 82. Nelson, McCormick and LoGerfo are at least a generation younger, meaning that they had not even been born yet when Young’s songs were the soundtrack of America’s folk-rock movement. This wide age range was reflected in the young and old members of the audience walking into the open-air stadium in Wantagh, Long Island.
The Northwell at Jones Beach Theater is uniquely designed in that the stage is on a man-made peninsula stretching into the Atlantic Ocean while the audience is on the shore. On this night, due to a perfect storm of a hurricane further south along with a local high tide, the potential of flooding forced the public who had tickets for the area nearest the stage to relocate further back. Indeed, the ocean started lapping onto the concrete in front of the stage during the intermission, shortly after Reverend Billy’s performance. Young later jokingly commented several times on the moat of water he watched rise between him and the audience, at one point looking down and gesturing a swim with a butterfly stroke. The closest seats to the stage were now at a considerable distance.
Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts walked on stage at 8:40 p.m., and launched into “Ambulance Blues” from Young’s 1974 album, On the Beach. The two hour performance drew from Young’s six decades of music, including songs from his early days with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Still, Nash & Young. Curiously, the set included no songs from his debut 2025 album with the Chrome Hearts.
Young’s setlist varies from show to show. On this evening, he announced that he and his Chrome Hearts would perform a song that he had not performed in a very long time. “Long Walk Home” is a Neil Young & Crazy Horse song that Young had not performed live since 1989. The Canadian-born singer-songwriter refreshed the 1987 lyrics with a new line, "From Canada to old Ukraine…." Young and his Chrome Hearts also surprised even his superfans with “Singer Without a Song,” a composition which Young never recorded on a major studio album. Young had not performed this song live since the 2012-13 Crazy Horse Alchemy Tour.
Nirvana and Pearl jam credited Young’s heavily distorted and abrasive guitar licks in the late 1970s as inspiring the grunge movement of the 1980s. Young’s guitar leads at the Jones Beach Theater still wailed and raged, but were more tempered than back then, in the years when it seemed like he did not know how to end a song. He also played acoustic guitar and upright piano on a few songs and, in an unusual move, played a small pipe organ on one song. Young’s unique vocals were forceful, and less reedy than on earlier occasions. Oldham’s organ was almost inaudible during the more rocking songs, but on the softer songs provided a smooth Procol Harum-styled touch. Nelson’s guitar style echoed Young’s; Nelson seemed like a student of Young’s with his crunching and soaring leads and riffs. McCormick and LoGerfo offered strong support when Young dove into guitar leads, with Nelson, McCormick and Young often facing each other in a tight circle as they jammed.
In the encore, “Rockin' in the Free World,” Young boldly chanted "Take America Back!" Both in his activism and in his music, Young remains an innovative leader, not at all a follower. The Jones Beach Theater performance proved that he is still very relevant and feisty, even as he approaches his 80th birthday in November. Adapting the lyric of his 1979 song “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black),” Young as a musician and as a cultural icon will be neither gone nor forgotten anytime soon.
Setlist
Ambulance Blues (Neil Young song)
Cowgirl in the Sand (Neil Young & Crazy Horse cover)
Heart of Steel (Neil Young & Crazy Horse cover)
When You Dance, I Can Really Love (Neil Young song)
Southern Man (Neil Young song)
Mr. Soul (Buffalo Springfield cover)
Ohio (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young cover)
Long Walk Home (Neil Young & Crazy Horse cover)
Looking Forward (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young cover)
One of These Days (Neil Young song)
Harvest Moon (Neil Young song)
Singer Without a Song (Neil Young song)
Sun Green (Neil Young & Crazy Horse cover)
Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) (Neil Young & Crazy Horse cover)
Name of Love (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young cover)
Old Man (Neil Young song)
Encore
Rockin' in the Free World (Neil Young song)
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The Manhattan Beat reports on New York City's live music circuit. All articles are written by Everynight Charley Crespo. All photographs are taken by Everynight Charley Crespo, except when noted otherwise.
For a list of Manhattan venues that are presenting live music regularly, swing the desktop cursor to the right of the The Manhattan Beat home page and click on the pop-up tab "Where to Find Live Music."
For a more complete listing of upcoming performances in the New York City area, visit The Manhattan Beat's August and September calendars.
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