That end that was the never ending Rocking in the Free World, those false endings and a two song fifteen minute encore that eventually saw the sound cut on Neil Young and his most excellent Chrome Hearts was just something very powerful coming. Those fifteen intense minutes before the plug was pulled came at the end of a set full of all kinds of bite, emotion, warmth, love, positive anger, question throwing and so so much more. We were expecting it to be good, I don’t think we honestly expected it that good, surely we had no right to even imagine it would be that good? If that was a planned end then they pulled it off with impressive theatrical style, if it was unscripted then even better! And before the powerful bite of Rockin’ In The Free World the encore started with the more than heartfelt snarling lament of an almost frustrated call to Throw You Hatred Down, a thirty year old song that may well have been written here in the conscious world of right here right now. What an encore, what an electric end to what, despite all, was an utterly brilliant show from a beautifully committed man, someone it is always a privilege to share time and space with. You can say what you like about Neil Young but hey, he really does give way more than just two shits, that was real commitment last night, that wasn’t some old rock star just going through the motions (and emotions) one more time, that really mattered to him, that mattered to us, that oozed so so much…

Where were we? Half way down the Lizzy line rushing in from the East towards Paddington and big enormo almost-festival milking-machine concerts like this aren’t really our style, the back room of the Shacklewell Arms is more our natural ground. Neil Young though, there are exceptions, and yes, we’ll say it right up front, that ticket price is outrageous! Aren’t they all? Way beyond the pocket of most Neil Young followers we know – we hear there was quite an atmosphere outside on the other side of the fence where those who listening for free in the park – half the people in here don’t seem to have much of a clue who Neal Young really is and the General Admission tickets that, once the booking fee and the rest of the bulshit is piled on, has cost people north of hundred quid a go doesn’t even get you (or us) within a mile of the stage and yes, before you ask, we are on the press list, you know us though, we might not have paid to get in but that doesn’t mean were not going to call it out. I’d like to think Neil doesn’t know about the layout and everything else, there’s more for him to complain about here than whatever his beef was about with the BBC and Glastonbury, I’d like to think Neil Young cares about these things, his music says he does. Hey, I don’t want to be complaining about the peripheral, the music was excellent and that is what we were here for, Neil Young and his Chrome Hearts were on top top form, brilliant gig and I’ve seen Neil more than a few times over the last forty odd years, this probably was the best I’ve ever seen him and Yusuf/Cat Stevens wasn’t that bad either. Most of the real fans might be outside or just simply priced out of even turning up, there are enough of us in here for the talkers, the selfie taking picnic eating day trippers and the rest not to spoil it all completely and of course the delivery of the music cuts through it all, of course he is going to cut through all the annoyance.

By the time we’ve walked all the way around the festival fence again from the box office to the North Entrance (we’d already walked right around to get to the box office, can’t you put it by her entrance, oh I see, us General Admission second class citizens can damn well walk). By the time we do get in Van Morrison is way into he set, can’t really say, his excellent 1972 album Saint Dominic’s Preview apart, that I’ve ever been that bothered about Van Morrison. His selfish Covid period bullshit turned off any lingering interest there was and hey, Gloria goes down a storm in the sunshine at the end as you’d rightly expect but we’ve missed most of it by the time we’ve final walked around the miles of fencing to and from from the damn box office to the entrance (only about another five minutes say a steward when we double check, put the damn box office by the gate!) and well, we’ll leave Van to it, I might dig out Almost Independence Day for a quiet listen later this week but missing most of his set didn’t bother us too much. 

We wonder over to the second stage for a while where Everyone Says Hi are sounding remarkably unremarkable and the singer is going on about how radical he is being by not taking off his jacket in the heat, yeah right mate, living life dangerously there! Nah, we’re most certainly not on the same side and way way too bland and tediously repetitive to the point of boredom in terms of song writing let alone personality to even be of the slightest interest. Hang on, was it really someone who was once in Kaiser Chiefs and someone who was in the Kooks? That probably explains most of it, someone from the Dead 60s? Someone from Howling Bells and bland bland bland bland. You keep that jacket on mate, no one is predict any riot here, we’re off to see if there’s any paint drying anywhere out of earshot. Actually pre gig investigation of those we didn’t already know really didn’t have us busting a gut to get here any earlier than we did, nothing we investigated made us want to check out anything on the other stages…

This is a strage crowd, who are these people? more concerned with consuming the damn pizza and occasionally reacting when Neil Young or Yusef before him, sings one they know – that Cat Stevens song Boyzone covered goes down extra well, they know that one. I swear there was a couple in front of me who never stopped talking through Neil Young’s set, what the hell were they even doing here? Yes, they stopped to cuddle during his romantic one, and did I really see photos on my timeline the next day with things like “date night with Neil and Van The Man” from miss prim and proper in her best dress and her pretty white handbag, this is a rock gig for flip sake, take her to the bloody pictures or afternoon cream tea! When the throwback of a crazed hippy comes stomping through it all clearly off his head on something and yelling “none of you are getting it man, none of you are listening to what he’s saying, what are you all doing here maaaaaan!” it is a merciful relief, oh please stomp on their picnic, please just fall over here in this direction, alas he misses, oh how I wanted to piss on their space-invading picnic and their middle class family outing, but hey, the music is flying above it, Neil Young’s set is just about perfect, he has it balanced so well, and that band are sounding so on it. Was that an old Crazy Horse up there? Did I see Poncho Sampedro on the big video screen for a brief moment? Probably not? The Chrome Hearts band, backing Neil Young, consist of Spooner Oldham on Farfisa organ, Micah Nelson (Willie’s son I do believe) on guitar, Corey McCormick on bass, and Anthony LoGerfo on drums (so a quick search tells us)

One more moan, well maybe not the last one, we’re having one of the hottest weeks of the year, we were told we could bring empty water bottles in and there would be plenty of free drinking water points, when we did eventually find one the lines for said free drinking water are way way longer than the long lines for the overpriced disappointment of a bar, anticipated I’ll give you, festival beer prices are never a shock, we know what to expect, but six and a half notes for a small can of IPA, get em in and then let’s milk ’em and most in here seem more than happy to be milked, half the crowd seem more interested in what to have on their chips than what Neil Young might be singing about. In this heat, with this frankly ageing audience, water should have been everywhere! And the lack of lighting and signage on the way out was bloody well verging on dangerous as well, thankfully those of us who know the area are able to direct people towards the last trains of the night, the music was great but hey, a lot of this over-priced festival was very wrong and someone needs to say so. Really made us appreciate how well All Points East over in Victoria Park is run, drinking water, exit lighting and signage in recent years have not been an issue at the relatively friendly well-run corporate East London festival. BST Hyde Park felt like a slightly cynical milking parlour and nothing more than what we expected really. Enough moaning, oh how I wish that hippy had landed on the picnic. I mean there were real people in here, the odd t-shirt, there’s a Bevis Frond one over there, a purple Van Der Graff shirt that causes a conversation or two, there are people really paying attention, the odd freak, the guy in the white suit and with the blue ink stains around the pocket is trying to hide his joint…

Cat Stevens or Yusuf Islam or both at the same time as it seems to be this days has always had bucket loads of crafted songs that are surely impossible not to like. People of a certain age will have had his Greatest Hits album, the one with that intriguing-to-a-ten-year-old slightly psychedelic cover played at them non-stop on eight track cartridge in the family car, it was always better than the Andy Williams tapes or the none stop Neil Diamond that went with any long car journey in no doubt thousands of Ford Cortinas (full of Household Pets to reference those Subhumans), Vauxhall Vivas or the British Leyland alternative and yes, those songs stuck around a little bit while you were pleading for some Slade or at least The Sweet (not a chance!), you might not have liked to admit it, but your folks did sometimes listen to good music. Yusuf has always has seemed like a thoroughly decent person, always a smile when he was out in his modest West London front garden and he does seem to radiate a positive attitude, a touch of hope, it is hard not to like Yusuf/Cat, he surely must be enjoying this today, not many miles from his Marylebone birthplace some seventy-six years ago, whatever might me going on in the world, I really hope he did enjoy it.

The very fine one minute that is the start of Tea for the Tillerman opens the sunny proceedings and sets the mood brilliantly up on the main stage for what is to be a gloriously uplifting set of newish songs alongside a lot of older classics (and Yusuf does have rather a lot of classics, easy to forget how many he does actually have until you go and check and oh, he never played that one or that one or…). There’s an excellent version of The First Cut is The Deepest early in the set – a song of his first brought to us by PP Arnold and covered by so many others – alas Matthew and Son isn’t in the set (actually there’s so much not played, he really really has written more than a few), there goes a rather gentle Father and Son, the crowd probably know that one from some boy-band crime or other. Actually a lot people seem to know a lot of his songs, the woman dancing to my right tells me she last saw him in ’68, the guy in Bloodstock shirt seems to be enjoying himself. Foreigner Suite goes by as does a fine version of jimmy Reed’s Big Boss Man and yes he was rightly never going to let what’s going on in Palestine pass and yes he does rightly take a moment to remind us that thirty years ago to the very day genocide was taking place in Srebrenica…

Yusuf set just the right tone with his reminders and observations, never too preachy as he dedicated Little Ones to those who lost their lives in the Srebrenica Massacre and to the Palestinians losing their lives to war today – he means it, he’s not just saying it, if he was just saying it then all his love and peace and we need to live together would be dangerously close to hippy-shit annoying, but he means every single word, you get the idea that he really is up at night worrying about it all, they every bit of what’s going on really hurts him, every bit of news frustrates him, it isn’t just yet another headline going past. And you also get the impression that he’s just so glad to be here, that he’s grateful for every minute he has or has had on this earth that he shares with us all and yes this would all read a little trite as well if it wasn’t for the way all this was coming over in such a positive way on that stage in a park in the middle of London in the hot Summer sunshine of 2025. 

Without wanting to be rude about it, you’ve got one old man in Neil Young who’s kind of world weary and just a touch angry about it all and another in Yusuf Islam who’s almost innocently hopeful and somehow still uplifting and the key here, the important thing here is that neither have given up on anything, they both have such a positive message, they’re both as refreshing as each other. Cat Stevens played an excellent late afternoon set, there he was, constantly calling out for peace and unity and hey, it might not be a Pearl Jam set ahead of Neil Young this time around but right now, it might now be someone like Sonic Youth cutting it, but right now, with everything that is going on it the world, could there be anyone better than Cat Stevens to be playing such a heartfelt set and doing it in such a healthy uplifting positive way before Neil Young today? Yusuf brings it home with a perfect-for-that-moment If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out followed by one of his very very best in Wild World before rushing into an inspiring heart-lifting version of Peace Train and more calls for peace then never ever sounded anything other than refreshingly right. 

Man it really is hot, I could really do with some of that drinking water we were promised. Damn this general admission area is way way back, but all that, as annoying as a big slice of the aforementioned crowd immediately around us are (I wonder if the fighting Scousers ever eventually got in?), all that annoyance is forgotten the moment Neil Young and his band almost humbly walk on in such a perfectly low key way (okay, not quite forgotten, the audience were damn annoying for his entire set, stop taking family selfies with your backs to the stage while he’s half way through another set of lyrics that really mean just a little bit more that most people’s lyrics do and we’re at a f***ing rock gig, put down your damn pizza and listen to what he’s singing! This is called the Love Earth Tour for a damn reason, but all that is kind of almost lost from the first nine minutes that are Ambulance Blues and Oh, Mother Goose, she’s on the skids, and how he’s grunged it up more and more over the years since the song first came out (on the beach) back in 1974 and yes this is a good thing lasting (and nothing buried in the past) and you know from that first song that he and his Crome Hearts have this gig well and truly nailed, You know from the off this is going to be special even by his standards and surely none of us critics will be sitting along on this one, surely everyone will agree on this gig? No pissing in the wind here, whatever we do or don’t know? And of course that like about never knowing a man who told so many lies could well be you know who, and you know who isn’t talking to Neil and Neil hopes he ain’t talking to you and hello cowgirl in the sand and can we stay here for a while….          

Cowgirl in the Sand, Be the Rain and When You Dance, I Can Really Love all flow by in equally rewarding raw-edged really on it style before that just beautiful riff that brings in Cinnamon Girl and that dreamer of pictures before those dogs that lick and those dogs that bite and those hounds that howl and why do I keep Fuckin’ Up – picnic mother and father look appalled as we shout along, I hope there’s going to be a live album off thing tour with these crucial versions, probably his best versions, these songs that he’s lived in for so long, these songs that he’s got to know so well, that he’s reshaped, these songs that have moved with him, lived with him, grown with him. Whatever he’s singing, whatever he’s saying, these songs can’t bring you down and this is why what he’s saying is so damn good and why this really is the Love Earth tour and why he is still singing in such an inspiring way about a young woman named Sun Green and those Suits pouring out of elevators, singing about an activist, about the damn cat-killing FBI and his constant themes of family, environmentalism and all those damn social issues and those Southern crosses probably burning as much as ever (or maybe a little more?) and Southern Man and this is one hell of a set and we’re not half way through yet and there’s Freaky Smith or was it Jesus returned? Yes that one, no maracas though, but he did make us think of Jesus for a moment as he yelled at the audience about “not getting it man, you’re not listening”, oh how I wanted him to dance on the pizza as he yelled at them and oh why did Bloodstock t-shirt have to chaise him off!? 

We go down a bit with The Needle And The Damage Done but it is a beautifully restrained version and such a well balanced set that takes is all over the spectrum that is Neil Young, Harvest Moon gets the dating couples dancing, at least it stops them talking, at least it shut them up for a moment! Who pays a couple of hundred notes for a couple of tickets and talks loudly all the way through the entire set aside from one song? Who the hell are these people? We’re in the mellow mid set now and an old (even if we’re trying not to use the word old) Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song that still seems to be Looking Forward before a sublime After The Goldrush takes us, via Love To Burn, to what might well have been the best version of Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) ever and I really don’t say that lightly, I’ve loved this song since that riff first floored the teenage me, it is the highest highlight in a set full or highlights, no burn out yet, I’m dancing like an idiot, pizza picnic family do not approve, this is such a wired version, that riff is extra filthy, some of us really are dancing and screaming the lyrics like fools, wow! That was one hell of a a version! How the hell are they going to follow that? Well another seamless mood change and another relatively mellow old Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song and can you do it in the name love? And Twenty four and there’s so much more and a just wonderful version of Old Man and look at how the time goes past look at how old we all are, except for the twenty four year olds here who are really getting this as well, and hey, maybe pizza kids will hold on to some of it? Maybe they are actually getting some of it?

On through the pantomime of going off and coming on again, and here in the conscious world and just the perfect thing in Throw Your Hatred Down and all the bite and that guitar sound only a Neil Young band can get and they really are so so on it and have been for the last two hours now. What a band, what chemistry and what a finish and choosing our teams while a TV screams! Throw your weapons down, Throw your weapons down and not even a second to catch breath before a just brilliant Rockin’ in the Free World kicks in and at least three false endings and those untamed riffs before they finally pulled the plug on him and us and just wow! Wow, that was something special, we need this man of the people, this mattered, this really mattered, what a gig, what a performance, how can it be? That really was the best I’ve ever seen him, how can that be? How old? Inspiring, Wow! (sw)