A review from the Burlington Free Press staff writer Brent Hallenbeck says Sunday’s show July 19 in Essex Junction was Neil Young’s first-ever headlining show in Vermont. He played with Promise of the Real for the ninth show of the tour.
Prior to the show he spoke at a press conference in favor of Vermont’s GMO labeling law. Activist booths were set up outside the concert.
Hallenbeck writes that Young was driven in large part by his support for the state’s law requiring food manufacturers to label products containing genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. The Grocery Manufacturers Association has filed suit against Vermont over that law, and Young announced Sunday that he’s donating $100,000 to the fund helping the state fight that lawsuit.
Here’s a clip from the review:
“Given that impetus behind the show, though, Young’s nearly two-and-a-half-hour concert was largely restrained about politics – for instance, he didn’t talk about the presidential candidate he favors, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont – and focused on the music that has made him one of rock’s top songsmiths for nearly half a century. He came out in blue jeans, a dark brimmed hat and a black T-shirt reading “Earth” and began with quieter tunes featuring his naturally strained, upper-register voice on top of acoustic guitar (with occasional harmonica interludes).
This was not the angry 69-year-old man raging against the corporate machine on “The Monsanto Years.” This was calm, reflective, often celebratory Neil Young as he played old favorites such as “Heart of Gold” and “Old Man.”
Lukas Nelson moved from guitar to piano as he played “Moonlight in Vermont,” an old standard his father often covers, even singing it with a warm, wavering tone like Willie Nelson employs. The crowd gave Nelson one of its heartiest ovations of the night.
Neil Young 2015-07-19 Champlain Valley Exposition, Essex Junction, Vermont, USA w/ Promise Of The Real
01. After The Gold Rush 02. Heart Of Gold 03. Long May You Run 04. Old Man 05. Mother Earth (Natural Anthem) 06. Out On The Weekend 07. Unknown Legend 08. Only Love Can Break Your Heart 09. From Hank To Hendrix 10. Harvest Moon 11. Wolf Moon 12. Words 13. Lookin’ For A Love 14. Moonlight In Vermont (cover) Lukas Nelson on lead vocals and piano 15. A Rock Star Bucks A Coffee Shop 16. People Want To Hear About Love 17. A New Day For Love 18. Country Home 19. Down By The River 20. If I Don’t Know 21. Workin’ Man 22. Monsanto Years 23. Love And Only Love
Tour: 2015 Rebel Content Tour Band: Promise Of The Real
Neil Young – vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, piano, pump organ, harmonica Lukas Nelson – electric guitar, piano, vocals Micah Nelson – electric guitar, electric charango, piano, vocals Corey McCormick – bass, vocals Anthony Logerfo – drums Tato Melgar – percussion
Neil Young and Promise of the Year have been tearing up the stage at each venue they hit on this Rebel Content Tour.
He’s another positive review from Steve Israel at the Times Herald Record. He calls the show “Riveting” that was held July 18 at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in Bethel, New York.
Read on: “About 45 minutes into his riveting three-hour show at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts Friday night, Neil Young talked about the first time he played the site of the 1969 Woodstock festival, 46 years ago, with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Back then, the sloping hills of Max Yasgur’s dairy farm were a muddy mess, blanketed with 450,000 young, sweaty long-hairs, many of whom got in for free.
“On Friday, Young stood on the stage of the plush pavilion, where the top ticket cost $204.50, on grounds where the crowd of some 13,000 – many with gray hair – could wander on manicured lawns amid the flowing streams and blue stone walls of the arts center.
“I was here a long time ago,” he (Neil) said, after he and his muscular yet lithe band of youngsters, Promise of the Real, finished the 1992 gem, ‘Unknown Legend. “It was very different. I’m not saying good or bad. Just different.”
“Then, as if this relentless warrior of musical and social change couldn’t help himself, he slyly suggested something radical.
“He invited Woodstock veterans to the stage and, tongue in jowly cheek, mused that they jackhammer the cement in front of it so the crowd and Young could get closer to one another.”
Israel writes that the music on this summer night ranged from sweet, heart-aching solo acoustic tunes like “Harvest Moon” to the pulverizing electric power of guitar jams like “Cowgirl in the Sand.”
And, he said, the protest tunes from the new “The Monsanto Years” album may have paled next to the classics, substituting clunky platitudes for timeless poetics. But Young and Promise of the Real played them with a physical and emotional ferocity that often made the cliches vanish into the sweet summer air.
Neil Young 2015-07-17 Bethel Woods Center For The Arts, Bethel, New York, USA w/ Promise Of The Real
01. After The Gold Rush 02. Heart Of Gold 03. Long May You Run 04. Old Man 05. Mother Earth (Natural Anthem) 06. Hold Back The Tears 07. Out On The Weekend 08. Unknown Legend 09. From Hank To Hendrix 10. Harvest Moon 11. Wolf Moon 12. Words 13. Winterlong 14. Walk On 15. A Rock Star Bucks A Coffee Shop 16. People Want To Hear About Love 17. A New Day For Love 18. Cowgirl In The Sand 19. Workin’ Man 20. Big Box 21. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere 22. Monsanto Years 23. If I Don’t Know 24. Love And Only Love — 25. Roll Another Number
Tour: 2015 Rebel Content Tour Band: Promise Of The Real
Neil Young – vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, piano, pump organ, harmonica Lukas Nelson – electric guitar, vocals Micah Nelson – electric guitar, electric charango, piano, vocals Corey McCormick – bass, vocals Anthony Logerfo – drums Tato Melgar – percussion
“The Thursday, July 16, Rebel Content Tour performance at the Susquehanna Bank Center in Camden, New Jersey, proved to be the longest so far – a three-hour behemoth filled with long jam sessions, according to reports from concert-goers.
Ryan Cormier at The News Journal in Delaware, a Gannett newspaper, writes that Neil Young is no “old man,” as he delivers a massive missive of old and new songs. He states:
“At the Susquehanna Bank Center on Thursday, (Lukas) Nelson, 26, and his youthful band seemingly energized Young, 69, who treated fans to a three-hour-and-15-minute slow burn marathon tour of his career bookended by a pair of his greatest hits.
“He opened the show by appearing out of the darkness sitting at his piano for a solo rendition of ‘After the Goldrush’ and wrapped up at midnight with a squealing ‘Cinnamon Girl’ send-off, showing the dynamic range that has marked his more than 50 years in the spotlight.
The only sign of time slowing the still-hard-charging Young was a pink wrap around his right wrist. Everything else was there: his gentle, well-preserved voice, the distinctively eccentric stomps and Crazy Horse-style guitar freakouts.
“A mid-set, near-transcendental run thorough ‘Down by the River’ lasted nearly 20 minutes with Young and the band sharing solos and Young hauntingly whispering, ‘Shot my baby dead.’
Young is at his best when a fire lit – whether it’s a cause that needs defending or a big power needs to be fought, Cormier says.
“On stage or in song, there’s no hiding when Young has you in his cross-hairs. Just ask former President George W. Bush who endured a focused attack for years from the man who wrote ‘Ohio’ 45 years ago.”
The Detroit News is reporting that Neil Young went ten minutes past the venue’s curfew and was fined $10,000.
Adam Graham of the Detroit News calls Young’s show with Promise of the Real “Ragged, Raw and Curfew-Breaking.”
The Rebel Content Tour performed 23 songs Tuesday, July 14 at DTE Energy Music Center in Clarkston, Michigan.
Graham said Promise of the Real “plays like a younger, scrappier version of Young’s own Crazy Horse.”
He writes: “Young locked in with his bandmates throughout the show, jamming with them during extended breakdowns like he was 20 years younger than his 69 years. And songs such as ‘Cowgirl in the Sand’ and ‘Everybody Knows This is Nowhere’ were given new life, the years falling away as Young fell into sync with his bandmates. (Young is known to be a audio junkie, and Tuesday’s show sounded nothing short of pristine.)”
He describes Young as “ragged and lived in, his voice a haunting yowl that’s only grown more honest with age. He wears his rust well.”
“’Mother Earth (Natural Anthem),’ from 1990’s ‘Ragged Glory,’ set the tone for much of the evening. Young pumped it out alone at an organ, singing, ‘respect Mother Earth and her healing ways/ or trade away our children’s days’ in pained, ghostly tones. At the close of the song, he was shooed away by a team of fumigators in all-white coveralls, a bookend to the pair of farmers who took the stage earlier in the evening to spread seeds and water the potted flowers at the foot of the stage. (Give it up for performance art, everybody!)
“After closing the set with a rocking, foot stomping ‘Love and Only Love,’ Young and his bandmates returned after the venue’s 11 p.m. curfew for an encore of ‘Don’t Be Denied’ and ‘Roll Another Number,’ a pair of early-to-mid-70s album tracks (from ‘Time Fades Away’ and ‘Tonight’s the Night,’ respectively).
It was an adventurous way to end the night, with Young forgoing bigger hits and tossing caution to the wind, but he long ago stopped playing other peoples’ games. Tuesday night was a show for the hardcore fans, and it was a rich reward for 40 years of loyalty.
Rock ‘n’ roll songwriting legend Neil Young performs during an acoustic set on stage on Saturday, July 11, 2015, at Pinnacle Bank Arena. FRANCIS GARDLER/Lincoln Journal Star
A review of Neil Young and The Rebel Content Tour’s performance on Saturday, July 11, 2015 at the Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska.
About 90 minutes into his concert at Pinnacle Bank Arena Saturday night, Neil Young strapped on “Old Black” and started to whistle, kicking off the jaunty “A Rock Star Bucks a Coffee Shop.”
With Promise of the Real chugging slim behind him like Crazy Horse, Young blasted Monsanto and Starbucks — and got a cheer from the crowd of more than 6,000 when he sang of the “fields of Nebraska,” while stating farmers won’t be able to grow what they want to grow.
“We don’t want to offend anybody,” Young said in the only statement he made beyond “thank you” during the show. “But we won’t be happy till they’re not happy.”
Wolgamott writes that Young opened the show with a five-song acoustic set, starting on piano with “After the Gold Rush,” then moving to guitar for “Heart of Gold,” “Old Man” and “Long May You Run.”
Closing the acoustic set on pipe organ, “Mother Earth (Natural Anthem)” ended the “greatest hits” portion of the program and set the theme for the show.
After guys in hazmat suits sprayed the stage — there’s always some kind of theatrics in a Young show — Promise of the Real joined him for a gently rocking “Hold Back The Tears,” beginning the folk-rock portion of the program.
That eight-song stretch, highlighted by “From Hank to Hendrix” and the country hop of “Field of Opportunity,” closed with a pair of moon songs — “Wolf Moon” and “Harvest Moon” — one of the rare hits in the second half of the show.
Then out came the electric guitar, a stretched out “Words (Between the Lines of Age,)” a few more older electric numbers, and hitting high gear with the bracing new songs.
The electric portion of the show lasted nearly two hours with Young hammering away on his guitar, trading riffs with the Nelsons as songs stretched and roared for five, maybe even 10 minutes.
It was also one of the arena’s very best shows, right up with Paul McCartney’s 2014 concert. That show was sold out. This one should have been.
Band of Horses opened with a solid 45-minute set of rock that fit well with Young’s approach. It was well received by the audience, most of whom had likely not heard of the South Carolina-based band.
Singer Ben Bridwell, who can sound like a young Young, noted they were playing their first show since the Confederate battle flag was taken down at their state Capitol.
“I come down from the misty mountain I got lost on the human highway. ” by -- Neil Young
Neil Young on Tour
Sugar Mountain setlists
Tom Hambleton provides BNB with setlists, thankfully. His website is the most comprehensive searchable archives on the Internets about anything Neil Young related setlists. Goto Sugar Mountain.
memphish on 
Albert Stromann on 
liza on 
Baz on 
