Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester [Photos]

On Monday night, Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts played a roaring 14-song set at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York, a performance that spanned Shakey’s entire catalog. The show marked one of Young’s first live appearances after canceling his summer tour due to illness, but, based on how he was playing that night, you’d have never known he took any sort of break.

Neil kicked things off with “I’m the Ocean” and then blistered through renditions of “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere,” “Comes a Time,” “From Hank to Hendrix” and “Harvest Moon,” before doing his best man-at-the-piano gig during “Journey Through the Past” and “Love Earth.” He ended the show with an incredible six-song finale, including “Powderfinger,” “Down By the River” and “Roll Another Number (For the Road)” in great succession. Man, talk about a setlist. I didn’t even mention that he dusted off “Unknown Legend,” or that Spooner Oldham joined him onstage while the band chugged through the New York night.

Last month, Shakey explained that his 2024 tour had been cancelled due to his health. “I woke up one morning on the bus and I said, ‘I can’t do this. I gotta stop,’” he noted. “It was like I felt sick when I thought of going on stage. My body was telling me, ‘You gotta stop.’ So I listened to my body.” In the same breath, he’s promised to return to the road with the Promise of the Real either later this year or in early 2025.

“We haven’t announced any shows yet, but they are mostly theaters that I played before, little theaters, and then I can play a little bit of acoustic, and then have the band come out and play,” he continued. “They’ll probably be on the East Coast and then going towards Michigan and then Ohio, and then a few other ones. They won’t be marathons. They won’t be two hours and 10 minutes of blasting rock and roll like it was with Crazy Horse.”

Read music editor Matt Mitchell’s two recent features on Neil Young here and here, and check out our photos from Young’s Capitol Theatre performance, captured by Emilio Herce, below.