Midway through his set at Jones Beach Theater in Wantagh, New York, on Saturday night, Neil Young sat at the piano and performed his Reagan-era protest song “Long Walk Home” for the first time since 1989.
The lyrics were largely faithful to the original version on Young’s 1987 LP Life with one crucial difference. “From Vietnam to old Beirut/If we are searching for the truth/Why do we feel that double-edged blade/Cutting through our hand” from the album was changed to “From Canada to Old Ukraine/We broke our word and left the pain/Why do we feel that double-edged blade/Cutting through our hand.”
Young and his wife, actress Daryl Hannah, are very vocal supporters of Ukraine. When Hannah appeared at the Oscars earlier this year, she made the peace sign with her hands and said, “Slava Ukraine.” This means “Glory to Ukraine,” and has become a battle cry for supporters of the embattled nation. Young originally planned on beginning his 2025 Love Earth Tour with a show in Ukraine, but ultimately pulled the plug.
“We had a good venue, close to the shelter, but the changing situation on the ground was too much,” Young wrote in a letter to fans. “I could not in good conscience take my crew and instruments into that area. My apologies to call. Ukraine is a great country with a good leader. Slava Ukraini.”
When Young originally recorded “Long Walk Home” in 1987, it was a sign that his early support for Ronald Reagan was a thing of the past. “I was never a Reagan supporter in a total blanket sense,” he told MTV in 1990. “I was one of those who felt that some ideas he had were good ideas. He had one point that he was stressing in the first six months of his job that he thought the people in the communities and neighborhoods should pull together and try to do things on their own more than depending on government to do it for them. And I thought that was a hell of an idea and here’s this old guy and he’s kind of got this image, of this fatherly image, telling all these people in their neighborhoods to pull together and get your own daycare centers happening, and get this and that happening.”
If there were any lingering doubts about his political views after “Long Walk Home,” he got rid of them in 1989 with the release of “Rockin’ in the Free World.” It’s a furious screed against George H.W. Bush that took his famous “Thousand Points of Light” speech from the 1988 Republic National Convention, along with his inaugural pledge to “kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world,” and twisted it into, “We have a thousands points of light/For the Homeless Man/We’ve got a kinder and gentler/Machine-gun hand.” (And that was a gentle song compared to his 2006 response to the elder Bush’s son.)
At the Jones Beach show on Saturday, Young closed out the night with “Rockin’ in the Free World,” and added in the “Take America Back!” chant he originated in April at a Los Angeles Bernie Sanders/Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rally.
Earlier in the night, he played “Singer Without a Song” for the first time in 12 years. The super deep cut appears on no album, and only surfaced on the 2012-13 Crazy Horse Alchemy Tour, along with a handful of benefit gigs later in 2013. “It’s been a long time since we’ve done this one,” he told the crowd. “Never.” (Earlier in the day, Young and the Chrome Hearts soundchecked it a number of times since no member of the band had ever played it before.)
The two rarities weren’t the only unusual aspect of the Jones Beach show. The lingering impact of Hurricane Erin produced a high tide that event organizers knew would flood the pit midway through Young’s set. (The amphitheater sits directly on Zach’s Bay, and the pit is below sea level.) Fans with general admission pit tickets were presented with the option of accepting refunds or receiving unsold reserved seats in the stands. It created a very unusual scene where the large area directly in front of the stage was completely empty, and it indeed slowly filled with water throughout Young’s set.
The tour continues Monday night at the site of the original Woodstock Festival in Bethel, New York, which is now known as the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. Things were pretty wet the first time that Young played there back in 1969, but there shouldn’t be any flooding this time around.
