It looks as though Neil Young's return to the stage last month at Stephen Stills' “Light Up The Blues” benefit in L.A. gave old “Shakey” the itch to perform. The April 22nd show at the Greek Theatre marked Young's first post-pandemic performance and was played in benefit of support Autism Speaks. On April 29th, he and Stills also took part of Willie Nelson's 90th birthday celebration at the Hollywood Bowl.
Young posted a message to fans on his official Neilyoungarchives.com website, that read:
Hi folks! Well, last week was really cool — playing with Steve and Willie. We have recordings and video of the Light Up The Blues Benefit show and rehearsal which we can share with you here soon. It was of course great to be playing with Stephen again. His voice and instrumental chops were the greatest. What a pleasure! Springfield again!
Seeing you all enjoying this show was amazing. The Willie birthday bash was a great gift for all, including Willie and family, Stephen, Kristen, Darryl and I. We are all eternally grateful for your love of the music!
….Made me want to play more. It felt so good to be up there after 3 and a half years…. Maybe July.
Over his long and storied career, Neil Young has touched upon, folk, country, blues, rock, rockabilly — and even grunge — on some of his albums. We asked him if there was a certain method to the madness when recording so many different styles of albums and hitting the road behind them: “There's no real logic to it. I may do two rock n' roll albums in a row at some point, or I may do two soft ones in a row, or I may do some different kind of album that everybody wonders what the hell I did that for. I mean, y'know, I could do that. Y'know, it just depends, and there's no plan. I'm just going with the songs. The songs dictate the direction.”