With his wrinkled, wizened face and ballbag neck, Neil Young is not a young man. In fact, he’s incredibly old. He’s always sung like he’s Methuselah, making Bob Dylan sound like a fresh-faced operatic toddler.
Of course, the older you get, the more you find things bugging you. Automated phone systems, self-service tills and absolutely everything young people do find a way into your bile, erupting out in a volley of complaint.
So what’s up with Neil Young now? Modern music, that’s what. He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like it in the same way his granddad would’ve hated his peers haircuts and music.
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Way back in 1979 at 33 years of age, Neil Young famously sang that it was better to burn out than to fade away. It was advice taken rather too literally by Kurt Cobain, quoting the lyric from Hey Hey, My My on his suicide note before taking a shotgun to his head, but it seems Young himself decided long ago that burning out simply wasn’t an option.
That’s not to say that he’s faded away – far from it for his fans. The now 62-year-old Young is back in Britain for the first time in five years tonight and there’s real anticipation in the air at the Hammersmith Apollo. Of course, this is a pretty hardcore crowd – the leather waistcoats and beards on display highly reminiscent of Steve Coogan’s Saxondale – but with six further sold out dates, there’s every reason to be excited.
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