Neil Young
The Pyramid Stage, Saturday June 29, 2025
Walking towards the Pyramid Stage to get a prime view in advance of Saturday’s headliner, MOJO is confronted by an ocean of people striding in the opposite direction. It momentarily feels like the entire festival audience is off to watch Charli XCX at the Other Stage and an almighty scheduling error has been made. But Glastonbury is a broad church and by the time the lone figure of Neil Young ambles onto the Pyramid Stage and begins strolling his way through Sugar Mountain, Young’s people have arrived to fill the field and witness a performance that runs the gamut of his mercurial talents.
Young’s appearance at Glastonbury 2025 has been something of a saga. In January he announced he would not be playing the festival due to what he termed its “corporate control by the BBC”. Although he changed his mind, his apparent suspicion of the broadcaster was such that even less than 24 hours before his appearance Young was still insisting he would refuse permission for his set to be shown on television, before eventually relenting. Three songs in, he makes a typically mischievous reference to the kerfuffle. “How you doing at the back?” he asks the audience, receiving a cheer from the upper slopes of the main arena. “Oh good. How about you people with your TVs in the bedroom?”
Sitting, standing, lying down… none of it alters the sense that every Neil Young show is an adventure and The Chrome Hearts are fuelling his appetite to continue along the road even in his 80th year, a journey that had seemed in doubt last year due to health issues. Essentially, the core of Promise Of The Real with the addition of legendary Muscle Shoals keyboardist Spooner Oldham, this group is equally adept at both the primitive trudgery of Crazy Horse or the gentler byways Young took in CSNY or any number of country diversions. Thus, Sugar Mountain is followed by Be The Rain from Greendale, Young and the Horse’s overlooked eco-opera, then When You Dance I Can Really Love, where Young straps on Old Black and gets into a classic grinding formation with guitarist Micah Nelson and Corey McCormick, with Oldham yammering in the background.
Along with drummer Anthony LoGerfo, the younger men are clearly very invested in their mission, not just to serve Young but to reveal fresh aspects and textures to material that is ostensibly set in stone. Like A Hurricane, for instance, features Nelson playing a synthesizer that’s bizarrely suspended from the stage ceiling, while Oldham switches to piano: a more wistful treatment for the song than its typical classic twin-guitar Crazy Horse burn-out.
Beyond the absence of any material from recent album Talkin To The Trees, the set’s wild cards are Looking Forward and Name Of Love, both from sub-par latterday CSNY albums, and proof that The Chrome Hearts can bring up the shine on even the dowdiest corners of Young’s catalogue. The latter song – performed by Young on a church organ adorned with an extravagant pair of platform boots – has possibly been unearthed for its references to bombs and missiles lending it fresh political currency. That, or else it’s just Young being his contrary self.
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Ending on Old Man is a popular choice: many, though not all, of his Glastonbury audience can relate to its bittersweet temporal contemplation, and under cloudy skies with even a trace of rain the Pyramid Stage crowd honours it the gentlest of singalongs. After the expected encore pummel through Rockin In The Free World, Young clearly wants more. “Got time for another?” he asks, before nodding the band into Throw Your Hatred Down, another song with heightened contemporary relevance. Then, “It’s been great to see you,” a final bow, and Neil Young & The Chrome Hearts are gone.
Rock’n’roll may well never die, or it could already be in its death throes. What is certain is that for as long as Neil Young is able to perform at such levels of intensity, each opportunity to watch him should be treated as a privilege.
Neil Young Glastonbury 2025 Setlist:
Sugar Mountain
Be The Rain
When Dance I Can Really Love
Cinnamon Girl
Fuckin’ Up
Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)
The Needle And The Damage Done
Harvest Moon
Looking Forward
Sun Green
Love And Only Love
Like A Hurricane
Name Of Love
Old Man
Rockin’ In The Free World
Throw Your Hatred Down
Follow all of MOJO’s Glastonbury 2025’s coverage HERE!
Photo: Jim Dyson/Redferns