{"id":3624,"date":"2025-07-14T03:02:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T03:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/neil-young-yusuf-cat-stevens-van-morrison-bst-hyde-park-london-july-11-2025-150435\/"},"modified":"2025-07-14T03:02:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T03:02:16","slug":"neil-young-yusuf-cat-stevens-van-morrison-bst-hyde-park-london-july-11-2025-150435","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/neil-young-yusuf-cat-stevens-van-morrison-bst-hyde-park-london-july-11-2025-150435\/","title":{"rendered":"Neil Young, Yusuf\/Cat Stevens, Van Morrison \u2013 BST Hyde Park, London, July 11, 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cWhat a world we got, folks,\u201d says Neil Young<\/strong>, before crashing into \u201cThrow Your Hatred Down\u201d<\/strong>, a 1995 anti-war song he surely hoped wouldn\u2019t still be so horribly relevant today. Young doesn\u2019t say much else for the duration of a gripping, intense, two-hour set, but his exasperation, anger and compassion are palpable in both his choice of songs and the way in which he plays them.<\/p>\n

BST Hyde Park<\/strong> is very much the Wimbledon of music festivals, a place where it\u2019s possible (for the right price) to watch the bands while sipping champagne on a shady terrace. With three headliners pushing 80 and temperatures into the thirties, a genteel afternoon is on the cards. But while Van Morrison<\/strong> doesn\u2019t share Young\u2019s world-changing zeal, he\u2019s still buffeted by raging internal passions, despite having to perform from beneath a gazebo temporarily erected on the Great Oak Stage to protect him and his terrific band from the fierce afternoon sun.<\/p>\n

Lithe and dapper in purple sunglasses and a sky blue shirt to match the ribbon of his hat, lockdown gripes finally out of his system, Morrison<\/strong> seems like a man reborn. At the end of a show-stopping \u201cSummertime In England\u201d<\/strong>, he\u2019s still trading rhapsodies about DH Lawrence with his sax player as he shuffles off the stage, only to return blowing furiously into a harmonica for an exultant \u201cGloria\u201d<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yusuf\/Cat Stevens<\/strong> carries a very different energy: wise and serene, prompting hesitant singalongs for \u201cFather And Son\u201d<\/strong> and \u201cWild World\u201d<\/strong>. Generally, his songs tend towards the twee. But there\u2019s an undeniable power to \u201cThe Little Ones\u201d<\/strong>, dedicated to the child victims of the Srebrenica massacre, 30 years ago today \u2013 and of the massacres still happening at this moment. \u201cWe are not free,\u201d he says, his calm demeanour momentarily shaken, \u201cuntil we are free from the military industry and those who make money from wars and hatred.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neil Young<\/strong> dives straight in at the deep end with that slow-burning symphony of disillusionment, \u201cAmbulance Blues\u201d<\/strong> \u2013 a song so potent it could have been written yesterday. \u201cI never knew a man who could tell so many lies,\u201d he once wrote of Richard Nixon. Wonder who he\u2019s thinking about when he sings that line today?<\/p>\n

Swinging on \u2018Old Black\u2019, Young immediately engages Micah Nelson<\/strong> in a fiery guitar duel that lasts for the duration of a compelling \u201cCowgirl In The Sand\u201d<\/strong>. It\u2019s no coincidence that Young\u2019s current band, the Chrome Hearts<\/strong>, use the same initials as Crazy Horse<\/strong>: they handle these songs with the same requisite balance of power and passion, adding perfectly fragile harmonies.<\/p>\n

Nelson<\/strong> is the slacker prince in ripped T-shirt and Kurt Cobain shades, his guitar even more battered than Young\u2019s. Meanwhile on the other side of the stage, venerable 82-year-old organist Spooner Oldham<\/strong> offers a throughline back to the \u201960s soul standards, bringing his understated magic to songs such as a twinkling \u201cHarvest Moon\u201d<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In a typically confounding Neil move, the Chrome Hearts<\/strong> don\u2019t play any songs from their recently released album Talking To The Trees<\/strong>, which is probably for the best. However, that album\u2019s basic, in-your-face approach has served its purpose in sharpening Young\u2019s focus for this tour. These are his best, most direct songs, played with fervour and fury, their targets clear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Photo: JRC McCord <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The most recent numbers in the set are from 2003\u2019s divisive \u2018musical novel\u2019 Greendale<\/strong>. But freed from that album\u2019s clunky conceptual framework, \u201cSun Green\u201d<\/strong> and particularly \u201cBe The Rain\u201d<\/strong> sound surprisingly urgent and vital. \u201cCorporate greed and chemicals are killin\u2019 the land!\u201d shouts Young<\/strong> through a megaphone effect. Which is potentially a bit obvious and preachy. But nobody\u2019s done anything about it yet, so he\u2019s saying it again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When \u2013 for the first time this tour \u2013 he ambles over to the piano to play a haunting \u201cAfter The Gold Rush\u201d<\/strong>, he naturally changes the words to \u201cmother nature on the run in the 21st century\u201d. There is a lovely moment when he pauses mid-song to hear the echo of the crowd singing the words back to him from the perimeter of the festival site. But mostly Young<\/strong> wants this heavy and raw. At one point he even sends the famous flying keyboard back into the rafters because he\u2019d rather crunch his way through a fearsome \u201cHey Hey, My My (Into The Black)\u201d<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is hard to entertain the idea that this could be Young\u2019s last-ever European jaunt. Even as curfew approaches, it looks like he could play forever. After the fourth false ending of \u201cRockin\u2019 In The Free World\u201d<\/strong>, the organisers are forced to pull the plug and the Chrome Hearts<\/strong> depart the stage in triumphant silence. While people are still sleeping in their shoes, while he\u2019s still got fuel to burn, Neil Young will surely keep on keeping on.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The post Neil Young, Yusuf\/Cat Stevens, Van Morrison \u2013 BST Hyde Park, London, July 11, 2025<\/a> appeared first on UNCUT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhat a world we got, folks,\u201d says Neil Young, before crashing into \u201cThrow Your Hatred Down\u201d, a 1995 anti-war song he surely hoped wouldn\u2019t still be so horribly relevant today.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442,548,47,88,1663],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cat-stevens","category-live","category-neil-young","category-reviews","category-van-morrison"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}