Neil Young And The Chrome Hearts
PNC Music Pavilion, Charlotte, North Carolina, Friday August 8, 2025
On an unseasonably temperate August night, in an unremarkable suburban amphitheatre in North Carolina, Neil Young & The Chrome Hearts kick off the U.S. leg of their Love Earth 2025 tour.
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Young — still bridging starkly honest folk singing and wild-eyed rock ‘n’ roll jamming, and doing so with deep stores of passion — shines like a blazing comet against a backdrop of dull stars.
A stanza from the opening song, 1974’s Ambulance Blues, strikes me and sticks with me throughout the night:
So all you critics sit alone
You’re no better than me for what you’ve shown
With your stomach pump and your hook and ladder dreams
We could get together for some scenes
Tonight, Young’s stubborn insistence on doing things his way dominates, any critics be damned.
The simple stage set-up offers no pageantry to enliven the setting, with only spartan embellishments — artsy metal mic stands, a giant version of Young’s signature Fender Deluxe amplifier, a spinning megaphone deployed on two songs from 2003’s Crazy Horse-backed Greendale, and a small arts-and-crafts angel hanging above (lowered so that guitarist Micah Nelson can play the attached keyboard during Like A Hurricane at the start of the first encore).
In the songs themselves, Young’s booming guitar and plaintively gnarled voice — continuing to become more distinctive and transfixing with age — monopolise the audience’s attention. The mix is muddy, and more delicate elements such as Spooner Oldham’s organ work are nearly impossible to make out.
Sound aside, at this point in the tour, The Chrome Hearts seem intent on providing sturdy undergirding for Young to thrive atop, staying out of his way and offering nothing remarkable to the proceedings. Even when Nelson injects clever fills into some of the jammier verses, or when drummer Anthony LoGerfo indulges in a cavalcade at the close of a song, the gestures feel restrained. Tonight, The Chrome Hearts have no interest in challenging their venerated leader.
While it’s frustrating that Young has no friction to play against, it’s also refreshing to see the balance of power flipped from what you might expect at such shows: a rocker in their elder years who doesn’t really still have it, bolstered by ace younger musicians. The Chrome Hearts provide the perfect backdrop for Young to prove, despite a Crazy Horse tour last year being sidelined due to exhaustion, that he hasn’t lost a step.
The acoustic-led songs suffer most from the mix issues, Young’s strums blaring uncomfortably loud at times, with snippets of Oldham’s gossamer organ and Nelson’s yearning lap steel cutting through, conjuring bittersweet visions of the rich arrangements that might await in a better-sounding environment.
That’s not to say the tender moments are without power. It’s impossible not to be moved by Young delivering Harvest Moon with resplendently earnest singing and bursts of some of the richest harmonica playing I’ve ever witnessed. And while the airy stroll through 1999 CSNY cut Looking Forward begs for organ to intertwine with the loping melody — like a fence lattice that feels too plain without greenery poking through — The Chrome Hearts rise to the task on the vocal harmonies, coming surprisingly close to the genuine article.
It’s in blazing through tunefully cacophonous rockers that Young shows best why he remains an icon, particularly in the two songs that give the most thematic pop to one of his first U.S. dates during the second Trump administration.
On Southern Man, the band feel tightly wound as they play, Nelson stepping behind the piano to clatter prettily but angrily, and Young looking particularly wrathful and mournful as he wails familiar rejoinders — “Southern man, better keep your head / Don’t forget what your good book said” — that reasonable Southern men would do well to keep in mind as the political temperature in the U.S. continues to rise.
And the expected closer, Rockin’ In The Free World, arrives as the lone offering in the second encore, Young violently slashing at the song’s chords and looking particularly incensed as he injects familiar calls to “Take America back!” before the performance comes to a close.
The sound isn’t great. The setting is forgettable. And this evening, The Chrome Hearts don’t provide the best backing Young has enjoyed during his long career. But tonight in the suburbs, the 79-year-old still rocks.
Neil Young, PNC Music Pavilion, Charlotte, North Carolina, Friday August 8, 2025 Set List:
Ambulance Blues
Cowgirl In The Sand
Be The Rain
When You Dance I Can Really Love
Fuckin’ Up
Southern Man
One Of These Days
Harvest Moon
Daddy Went Walkin’
New Mama
Looking Forward
Sun Green
Love And Only Love
Hey Hey, My My
Encore 1:
Like A Hurricane
Name Of Love
Old Man
Encore 2:
Rockin' In The Free World
Photo: Neil Young at BST Hyde Park, July 11, 2025 (Credit: Isha Shah)