Neil Young Eyes Tour With Promise Of The Real Members, Hopes For Crazy Horse’s Return

Neil Young addressed the sudden cancelation of his tour with Crazy Horse and plans for the future on Wednesday during a Zoom with Neil Young Archives subscribers. Young told fans he’s putting together a U.S. theater tour with Micah Nelson and Promise Of The Real drummer Anthony Logerfo and bassist Corey McCormick while Crazy Horse gets back to full strength.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse‘s first tour in five years was canceled on June 26 after the legendary band had made it through 15 shows. Young said at the time the decision came “when a couple of us got sick” without pointing out which members became ill. Neil Young spoke more in-depth about the situation on Wednesday.

“I was doing great and we were moving right along,” Young said. “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. My body was telling me, ‘You gotta stop.’ So I listened to my body.”

The cancelation had repercussions but Young did what he had to do. “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,” the 78-year-old musician explained. “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. So, my body told me to not do it.”

Neil Young still wouldn’t say which members of Crazy Horse were sick. “This happened to a couple of us and we’re not all the way back,” Young added. “Crazy Horse will be back, god willing, and we’ll play more. But in the meantime I have a lot of friends that I play with and several of the guys from Promise Of The Real are going to be playing with me when I go out.”

The famed rocker said the stripped-down concerts will take place in a few weeks. Right now the only date on the books for him is an appearance at Farm Aid in Saratoga Springs, New York on September 21.

“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,” Young said of his plans with Nelson and the POTR rhythm section. “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.”

Neil Young went into more detail on axing the 16 Crazy Horse shows earlier in the call. “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,” Young commented as laid out by Rolling Stone. “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.”

The format of Neil Young’s Farm Aid set has yet to be revealed. Tickets remain on sale as of press time via LiveNation.com. Willie Nelson, Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds, John Mellencamp, Mavis Staples, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Lukas Nelson with The Travelin’ McCourys, Charley Crockett, Joy Oladokun, Southern Avenue, Cassandra Lewis and Jesse Welles are also slated to perform.