Review: Neil Young Tears Through 60-Year Career Overview at Blossom Concert

Neil Young has a few things on his mind in 2025.

He’s worried about the state of the world politically. He wants the earth to remain habitable. And he’s got mortality on his mind.

But Young, not usually one for subtlety, didn’t hit the Blossom Music Center crowd over the head with his messaging as bluntly as he could on Friday night. Instead, he let some of his best-known tunes and obscurer cuts do most of the talking over nearly two hours. While those looking for a strictly greatest hits set were bound to be disappointed (though, honestly, who expects that from Young after he defied expectations time and time again?), there was plenty to enjoy over the 17 songs torn through by him and backing band the Chrome Hearts.

The alternately ferocious and tender set by the esteemed singer/songwriter/rocker, who made his first appearance in Northeast Ohio since a 2012 show with backing band Crazy Horse at the Wolstein Center in Cleveland, had songs spanning nearly six decades. From Buffalo Springfield’s “Mr. Soul” to new song “Silver Eagle,” Young proved what he was capable of at his height and what he can still do as he pushes 80 years old.

The show was a sampler of all his talents, idiosyncrasies and messages, from the calls to “save Mother Earth” on 2003’s “Be the Rain” to the almost hypnotic pump organ-driven “Name of Love” to the powerful “Ohio,” played about 15 miles from the site of the National Guard’s deadly intervention in a 1970 Vietnam War protest that inspired the song. He shouted and sang through a megaphone at times and played behind a huge prop of an orange speaker.

And while we should perhaps feel lucky to see Young live at all—especially after a tour with Crazy Horse last year was called off part way through after it proved to be too much for the band to handle—he showed he doesn’t need any propping up. His guitar work, whether on his “Old Black” Gibson Les Paul on “Cowgirl in the Sand” or on acoustic like on showstopper “Harvest Moon,” remains top notch. His nasally voice is also remarkably intact, which was evidenced by the plainspoken delivery on show opener “Ambulance Blues” and his shout-singing over the cacophony on “Southern Man.”

Also, lucky for him that he’s found ace musicians to shepherd him through the final years of his career.

The Chrome Hearts, put together last year and featured on new album “Talkin to the Trees,” showed it’s more than up to the task. Made up of younger members—guitarist/keyboardist Micah Nelson, bassist Corey McCormick and drummer Anthony LoGerfo—and an old hand in legendary organist Spooner Oldham, the quartet provided whatever its leader needed at a given moment, from the stomp of “Cinnamon Girl” to the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young harmonies of “Looking Forward” and everything in between.

The band’s more polished than, say, the primal garage rock of Crazy Horse, but the Chrome Hearts proved to be more versatile.

After closing the main set with “Old Man”—and turning the song he wrote in his 20s into a reflection of where he is in his life—he returned for a lurching, feedback-drenched “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black).” The song’s performance was another example of what was clear all night: that Young has nothing to prove but can still transcend expectations.

Setlist:
1. Ambulance Blues
2. Cowgirl in the Sand
3. Be the Rain
4. Cinnamon Girl
5. Southern Man
6. Mr. Soul
7. Ohio
8. Looking Forward
9. Silver Eagle
10. Harvest Moon
11. Daddy Went Walkin’
12. New Mama
13. Sun Green
14. Like a Hurricane
15. Name of Love
16. Old Man
Encore:
17. Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)