For his first full show of 2025, Neil Young dug into his back pages for his first “My Boy” since 1983 and debuted a solo take on “Name of Love”, a deep cut from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young‘s 1988 comeback album, American Dream.
Young took the stage on the campus of Ontario’s Lakefield Northcode Campus for a solo acoustic performance. Proceeds from the concert benefited the restoration of a historic 116-year-old cottage near the school in Young’s home city. The 18-song setlist covered a wide range of Young’s monolithic catalog, from his early days with Buffalo Springfield to solo cuts to recent tracks with Crazy Horse. The show ended with his first public “Old Man” since 2019.
The packed audience dodged raindrops as Young opened the show with classic “Comes a Time” and weaved through his discography with Buffalo Springfield’s “I Am a Child”, “Heart of Gold”, “Field of Opportunity” from his latest unearthed “lost” album Oceanside Countryside (1977), Harvest‘s “Out on the Weekend”, and Crazy Horse’s “Love and Only Love”. Young then grabbed his banjo for a touching reading of “My Boy”, which he wrote for his first son Zeke, who was born with cerebral palsy in 1982.
Ahead of the Lakefield show, Young wrote on the Neil Young Archives about his love for “My Boy”, saying “Practicing for Lakefield, I was playing ‘My Boy,’ [and] thinking about my own dad…he must have heard this song. My dad was a great guy and Zeke is a wonderful son. I think ‘My Boy’ is my favorite recording of all the ones I have done.”
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Between other classics “Harvest Moon” and “Long May You Run”, Young touched on his time in proto-supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with “Love Art Blues” and “Helpless”. Digging back to 1988’s consequential-yet-poorly-received CSNY comeback LP American Dream, Young performed “Name of Love” for the first time in the absence of his bandmates. Young got back in the studio with David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash in the late ’80s after promising Crosby he would reunite the band if David got off drugs, which he did, following a 1985 prison term for possession of cocaine and a semi-automatic firearm. Though the album garnered mixed reviews from fans and critics alike, Young clearly still feels some affinity for American Dream to be trotting a song out 37 years later.
Neil Young — “Helpless” — 5/28/25
[Video: Luke O’Connor]
Neil Young — “Harvest Moon” — 5/28/25
[Video: Craig Bell]
Finally, Young finished his set with “After the Gold Rush” and recent Crazy Horse standout, “Love Earth”. Young canceled his Love Earth tour with his longtime backing band midway through last summer, citing health concerns, only to launch a new band, The Chrome Hearts, three months later at Farm Aid.
For an encore, Young returned to the stage for a reflective “Old Man”. Young last performed the song on September 26th, 2020, as part of the virtual Farm Aid On The Road streaming event during COVID, and last performed it to an audience on September 14th, 2019, at his Harvest Moon festival, per Setlist.fm.
Neil Young will take his Chrome Hearts overseas for an international tour before returning to the U.S. in August. According to Young’s previous statements, they will have a new album in tow. Find tickets and tour dates here.
Setlist: Neil Young | Lakefield Northcote Campus | Lakefield, ON | 5/23/25
Set: Comes a Time, Sugar Mountain, I Am a Child (Buffalo Springfield), Heart of Gold, Field of Opportunity, Out on the Weekend, Love and Only Love (Neil Young & Crazy Horse), My Boy [1], Mellow My Mind, Harvest Moon, Homegrown, Love Art Blues (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young), Long May You Run (The Stills–Young Band), Helpless (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young), Name of Love (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) [2], After the Gold Rush, Love Earth (Neil Young & Crazy Horse)
Encore: Old Man [3]
[1] LTP 2/10/83
[2] FTP solo
[3] LTP 9/26/20 for virtual Farm Aid, last public performance 9/14/19