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Working On A Dream Tour

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The Working on a Dream Tour was a concert tour by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, which began in April 2009 and ended in November 2009. It followed the late January 2009 release of the album Working on a Dream . This was the first full E Street Band tour without founding member Danny Federici, who died during the previous tour in 2008, and the final tour for founding member Clarence Clemons, who died in 2011.

The tour was shorter than a typical Springsteen outing, but for the first time in his career, it placed an emphasis on performing at music festivals, especially in Europe. Even more unlike all his previous tours, the Working on a Dream Tour featured little of his new album. Instead, several trends from the latter stages of the previous year's Magic Tour were carried forward: a focus on topical content, this time the late-2000s recession; a repetition of some of the stage raps and antics; and most visibly, continuation of a 'signs' segment, in which audience members would hold up signs requesting rare Springsteen songs or decades-past oldies and the band would stage (sometimes impromptu) performances of them. The final leg of the tour often featured another first as Springsteen played one of his classic 1970s or 1980s albums all the way through. Critical reaction to the tour's shows was generally positive, although the absence of the new material was noted.

Max Weinberg was not available for parts of the tour due to his bandleader obligations to The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien , which was just commencing. His 18-year-old son, Jay Weinberg, became his replacement for parts or all of a number of shows, to a mostly positive reception from the rest of the band, the audience, and critics. The tour also gave Springsteen a chance to bid farewell to two famous venues he had played many shows at – the Philadelphia Spectrum and New Jersey's Giants Stadium.

The tour was a commercial success, grossing over $167 million, being seen by over 1.9 million ticket holders, and finishing as the third-highest-grossing tour in the world for 2009 even though the tour faced some logistical issues. Ticket sales were botched by Ticketmaster, a situation further exacerbated by revelations of their holding seats back for their secondary market TicketsNow. Before long, legislatures and attorneys general of several states, as well as members of the U.S. Congress and federal regulatory agencies, were weighing in on the matter, with various lawsuits, settlements, and proposed laws as the result.

Broadcasts and recordings [ ]

Several of the tour's festival appearances aired on television or radio during 2009.

One song's worth of the June 13 Bonnaroo Music Festival appearance, "Outlaw Pete", made it into a U.S. packaged broadcast of festival highlights for television, "The Best of Bonnaroo 2009", that appeared on Fuse TV on June 20. The performance of that song subsequently appeared on a Live From Bonnaroo 2009 DVD.

Portions of the June 27 Glastonbury Festival performance were aired live on BBC Two television and BBC 6 Music radio. A number of fans complained that the full set had not been shown by the BBC, which in turn said the set had been too long to broadcast in its entirety. Televised highlights were later shown on BBC Four and BBC HD.

In conjunction with the Fourth of July holiday in the United States, E Street Radio featured 45 minutes from the July 3 Frankfurt Commerzbank Arena show.

In the United States, the Hard Rock Calling Hyde Park appearance was included in an August 21 broadcast on the VH1, VH1 Classic and Palladia cable channels; seven Springsteen and E Street Band performances, including "London Calling" to open the program, were included in amongst other artists' performances.

Several shows were filmed, but at the tour's conclusion no decisions had been made about whether to release them on DVD or other media. In June 2010, London Calling: Live in Hyde Park was released: a 163-minute, near-complete Blu-ray/DVD accounting of the named show.

Several shows were released as part of the Bruce Springsteen Archives:

• HSBC Arena, Buffalo, NY, 11/22/09 , released December 23, 2016
• Wachovia Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA 10/20/09 , released July 13, 2017
• MSG Nov 08, 2009 , released June 1, 2018
• Nassau Coliseum, 05/04/09 , released February 7, 2020
• ‘’MSG November 7, 2009”, released December 24, 2020.
• ’’Cleveland November 10, 2009”, released March 4, 2022.

Cancelled dates [ ]

• 1 Born In The U.S.A. Tour
• 2 E Street Band
• 3 The E Street Horns

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How Bruce Springsteen Stumbled on ‘Working on a Dream’

Bruce Springsteen was coming off a decade that included a reunion with the E Street Band, two strong albums of new material, an acclaimed folk music project and seemingly endless touring. He took a step backward with his next project, Working on a Dream , which hit stores on Jan. 27, 2009.

Perhaps it was the fact that the album was released so soon after 2007’s Magic , whose tour had just ended five months earlier, or that the material was worlds removed from the angry political songs — some of Springsteen’s best of the decade — on its predecessor. But even though the record has aged fairly well, the pop gloss found on Working on a Dream  failed to capture the spirit of its time in the way that so many Springsteen albums had in the past.

It didn’t help that two of the first four tracks rank high on the list of his all-time worst songs, a rarity for someone who famously pays close attention to the sequencing of a record. The eight-minute opener, "Outlaw Pete," was a misguided attempt at an epic folk tale about a kid who “at six months old [had] done three months in jail.” (Springsteen also borrowed the melody from Kiss ’ "I Was Made for Loving You.")

Similarly, "Queen of the Supermarket" was greeted with plenty of eye-rolling, both for its lyrics and for Springsteen’s over-the-top vocals which, to be fair, were his best Roy Orbison impression since 1993’s "I Wish I Were Blind."

Watch Bruce Springsteen Perform 'Working On a Dream'

In the third spot, the title track, which had been premiered that fall on the campaign trail with Barack Obama — whom he had endorsed during the primaries — didn’t stir too many hearts either. "Working on a Dream" was pleasant enough, but it lacked weight on a theme that he had tackled much more successfully in the past.

But once the listener got past its poor beginning — interrupted only by the blistering "My Lucky Day" — there were plenty of gems, with only the distorted blues of "Good Eye" failing to connect on some level. Springsteen and producer Brendan O’Brien borrowed heavily from the lush ‘60s Los Angeles-based AM pop of his youth. The sonic backdrop added extra heft to "What Love Can Do" and "Kingdom of Days," the latter of which was a gorgeous meditation on love and aging, a topic rarely addressed in rock.

"This Life" had echoes of the Beach Boys ’ Pet Sounds  and a half-dozen Turtles hits, "Surprise Surprise" and "Life Itself" jangle along like lost Byrds tracks and "Tomorrow Never Knows" had the easygoing country shuffle of Glen Campbell’s "Gentle on My Mind."

Working on a Dream  closed with "The Last Carnival," a moving tribute to E Street Band keyboardist Danny Federici, who died in April 2008 from melanoma, and featuring Federici’s son Jason on his father’s accordion. The album also featured a bonus track in "The Wrestler," which was written for Darren Aronofsky’s film of the same name. The song earned Springsteen a Golden Globe for Best Original Song two weeks before Dream was released.

Listen to Bruce Springsteen Perform 'The Last Carnival'

Springsteen couldn’t have had a better advertisement for his new work. Five days after the album’s release (and a few days before tickets for the tour went on sale), he performed at the  Super Bowl halftime show. It seemed like a strange decision for Springsteen, who had always refused any attempt to tie his music to a corporate venture, but in his journal about the event, he explained his main reason.

“Since the inception of our band, it was our ambition to play for everyone,” he wrote. “We’ve achieved a lot but we haven’t achieved that. Our audience remains tribal … that is, predominantly white. On occasion, the Inaugural Concert, during a political campaign, touring through Africa in 1988, particularly in Cleveland with President Obama, I looked out and sang 'Promised Land' to the audience I intended it for – young people, old people, black, white, brown, cutting across religious and class lines. That’s who I’m singing to today.”

The move worked as well as could be expected. Working on a Dream debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and topped the charts in 17 other countries. Despite its obvious flaws, Rolling Stone gave Working on a Dream the now-customary five-star review, calling it “the richest of the three great rock albums Springsteen has made this decade with the E Street Band — and moment for moment, song for song, there are more musical surprises than on any Bruce album you could name.”

Working on a Dream went on to sell 585,000 copies in the U.S., a respectable figure given that the country was in the midst of its worst recession in 80 years, and three million worldwide.    

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Bruce Springsteen’s Working On A Dream Tour: Opening Night

by Evan Schlansky April 2, 2009, 2:18 pm 1 Comment

Videos by American Songwriter

How did the show go?

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band kicked off their North American tour last night.

This guy didn’t like it.

This guy has a lot of suggestions about how the setlist could be better (written before the tour even launched)

Backstreets has, as always, a well-written summary that’s fair, balanced, and specific.

We’ve got the setlist, and a video of “The Wrestler”:

Badlands Outlaw Pete My Lucky Day No Surrender Out in the Street Working on a Dream Seeds Johnny 99 The Ghost of Tom Joad Good Eye Good Rockin’ Tonight Darlington County Growin’ Up Waitin’ on a Sunny Day The Promised Land The Wrestler Kingdom of Days Radio Nowhere Lonesome Day Born to Run

Encore: Hard Times Thunder Road Dancing in the Dark Tenth Avenue Freeze-out Land of Hope and Dreams American Land

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Working on a Dream

By Stephen M. Deusner

January 27, 2009

Working on a Streak is more like it. First, there's that Golden Globe for "The Wrestler", then a performance at the We Are One concert at the Lincoln Memorial, a handful of Grammy noms for a two-year-old song, a greatest-hits package exclusive from Wal-Mart, this weekend's Super Bowl halftime show, and a just-announced reissue of Darkness on the Edge of Town . So that Oscar snub can't sting too much. In the middle of a pretty amazing month, Bruce Springsteen is releasing his 16th studio album, one whose title sounds more like a campaign slogan than a rock record. Maybe that's intentional: After spending much of this decade playing up to listeners' notions of post-9/11 recovery and conjuring up bleak visions of Bush-era America, the Boss settles into some sense of contentment on Working on a Dream , as if that Dream had already been achieved. In this regard, the album sounds like the final installment of a trilogy he began with The Rising in 2002 and continued with Magic in 2007-- ignoring Devils & Dust , which isn't hard to do, and We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions , which remains his best and most freewheelin' late-career album.

Tracing his personal-- and, arguably, our national-- mood from wounded to outraged to somewhat contented, these albums are linked by Springsteen's ongoing collaboration with producer Brendan O'Brien, whose work has grown increasingly capable and adventurous with each release. Despite removing any trace of regional shuffle from these songs, O'Brien puts them across like the proficient bar band they are, roaring through "My Lucky Day" and "What Love Can Do" with professional abandon. O'Brien erects an impressive 1960s wall of sound on "Surprise, Surprise", with its carnivalesque organ and girl-group backing vocals, and in general he streamlines the E Street Band's sound to highlight one central melody or riff. Opener "Outlaw Pete" rides an ascending/descending theme not dissimilar to KISS' "I Was Made for Loving You". Strings protrude from the song at odd angles, Springsteen's vocals echo through what sounds like a deep valley, and Roy Bittan contributes a hyperactive organ as the song spins a yarn about an outlaw so vague he sounds only theoretical. The track is overstuffed with ideas, and at eight minutes, it's a strange, ineffective opener, setting a curiously detached mood for an album that is, for Springsteen, typically engaged.

Of his three E Street Band releases of the 00s, Working on a Dream is the one that most sounds like a solo album, indulging a range of ideas that reveal Springsteen as still musically curious and more than willing to play around with his sound. Another American rock saint-- Brian Wilson-- shows up in the walking bass line on the title track as well as in the Pet Sound s percussion and ba-ba-ba's of "This Life". The scribbly guitar on "Life Itself" recalls the Byrds on "Eight Miles High" more than Nils Lofgren or Steve Van Zandt, providing a tense backdrop for Springsteen's pleading lyrics. The garbled-blues "Good Eye", one of the album's weirdest tracks, ratchets Springsteen's distorted vocals to a yelping beat and electrified banjo, but like his recent one-off download "A Night With the Jersey Devil", it feels like merely a demonstration of studio technique.

Working on a Dream works hard on sound, but sleeps on actual songs. "Queen of the Supermarket" may be the worst thing he's ever written, an overly symphonic ballad about crushing on the stock girl. It's sweet, but there's something about the high-flying strings and the intensity of the imagery ("A dream awaits in aisle number two") that suggests parody. The checkout beeps that help the song out to its car certainly don't dispel the wink. "At night I take my groceries and drift away," Springsteen sings, but here his working-class identifications sound a little condescending and inappropriate. Just as "57 Channels (And Nothing On)" failed to convince anyone that Springsteen watched a lot of TV, "Queen of the Supermarket" can't persuade listeners that he does his own grocery shopping. Now that his big dream has come true, Springsteen doesn't seem to know what to do with himself. So he's trying to do everything.

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Bruce Springsteen Brings the “Dream” To California

By Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band kicked off their Working on a Dream tour last night at San Jose, California’s HP Pavilion. The set clocked in at two hours and 40 minutes according to Bruce fansite Backstreets , who also provided the night’s set list (see below), and noted its similarity to the set the band rocked at their second Asbury Park rehearsal gig (Rolling Stone was at Springsteen’s first rehearsal). For the story inside the Bruce rehearsals, grab the new issue (on newsstands now!), and check out our interviews with Steven Van Zandt and Max Weinberg’s drummer son Jay, Springsteen’s “secret weapon” online. Get a look at the opening-night photos here and the songs below:

• Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Bring Their “Dream” To California

Set List: “Badlands” “Outlaw Pete” “My Lucky Day” “No Surrender” “Out in the Street” “Working on a Dream” “Seeds” “Johnny 99” “The Ghost of Tom Joad” “Good Eye” “Good Rockin’ Tonight” “Darlington County” “Growin’ Up” “Waitin’ on a Sunny Day” “The Promised Land” “The Wrestler” “Kingdom of Days” “Radio Nowhere” “Lonesome Day” “Born to Run”

Encore: “Hard Times” “Thunder Road” “Dancing in the Dark” “Tenth Avenue Freeze-out” “Land of Hope and Dreams” “American Land”

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Here’s what Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band played as he returned from health break to kick off 2024 tour

The Boss was forced to take a break from playing live after being treated for peptic ulcer disease

Bruce Springsteen kicked off his 2024 world tour in Arizona last night (March 19), after taking a health break in recent months. Check out fan footage of the show and the full setlist below.

• READ MORE: Bruce Springsteen live in London: the heartland hero remains firmly at his majestic peak

Held at the Footprint Center in Phoenix, Arizona last night, the show marked the first of Springsteen’s comeback shows with the E Street Band after having to postpone a hefty chunk of shows in 2023 due to health concerns .

The worries arose towards the end of last year, when the singer-songwriter needed to be treated for peptic ulcer disease , and was forced to delay all of his shows after playing in New Jersey on September 3.

He went on to make a number of guest appearances at various events – including joining John Mellencamp for a surprise duet on March 10, and taking part in the 2024 MusiCares Person of the Year gala honouring Jon Bon Jovi on February 2.

Ahead of the new show, Springsteen teased fans with a post online, saying that the new run of live shows would see him return stronger than ever. “Greeting freaks, fans and friends in Phoenix, Arizona,” he said in the clip. “I am coming to see you on Tuesday night. And I want you to ready, be prepared, be afraid, because we are going to rock you into the ground. See you then.”

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Bruce Springsteen (@springsteen)

Now, on the opening night of his 2024 shows, The Boss has kicked off the tour with a huge 29-song setlist which features all his fan favourites, as well as a number of covers.

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To open the show, Springsteen started by performing his 2002 track ‘Lonesome Day’ – taken from his album ‘The Rising’. From there, he launched into renditions of ‘Night’, ‘No Surrender’, ‘Two Hearts’ and ‘Darlington County’.

The set saw him incorporate tracks from across his extensive discography, ranging from songs from his first album, ‘Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.’, through 2022’s ‘Only the Strong Survive’.

Covers on the night included a spin on Ben E. King’s ‘Don’t Play That Song (You Lied)’, ‘Nightshift’ by the Commodores, ‘Because The Night’, which appeared on the Patti Smith Group album ‘Easter’, and ‘Twist and Shout’ by The Top Notes.

The latter appeared during the encore, alongside ‘Born To Run’, ‘Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)’, ‘Glory Days’, ‘Dancing in the Dark’, ‘Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out’ and an acoustic performance of ‘I’ll See You in My Dreams’.

Check out fan footage of the show below, as well as the full setlist.

Bruce springsteen is on stage in Phoenix in the States. #springsteen pic.twitter.com/h77JGEqV1g — Jim Steele (@clock1258) March 20, 2024

I leave you tonight with a snippet from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in Phoenix. What an amazing night at ⁦ @FootprintCNTR ⁩ as The Boss kicked off 2024 world tour, Tremendous performance! pic.twitter.com/tKyShAwW0g — Howard Stutz (@howardstutz) March 20, 2024

Bruce Springsteen’s setlist in Phoenix, Arizona was:

‘Lonesome Day’ ‘Night’ ‘No Surrender’ ‘Two Hearts’ ‘Darlington County’ ‘Ghosts’ ‘Prove It All Night’ ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town’ ‘Letter to You’ ‘The Promised Land’ ‘Spirit in the Night’ ‘Don’t Play That Song (You Lied)’ (Ben E. King cover) ‘Nightshift’ (Commodores cover) ‘Mary’s Place’ ‘Last Man Standing’  ‘Backstreets’ ‘Because the Night’ (Patti Smith Group cover) ‘She’s the One’ ‘Wrecking Ball’ ‘The Rising’ ‘Badlands’ ‘Thunder Road’ ‘Born To Run’ ‘Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)’ ‘Glory Days’ ‘Dancing in the Dark’ ‘Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out’ ‘Twist and Shout’ (The Top Notes cover) ‘I’ll See You in My Dreams’ (Acoustic solo)

In other Bruce Springsteen news, the Boss recently took part in Mark Knopfler’s star-studded charity re-recording of ‘Going Home’ , which starred the likes of  Queen ‘s Brian May , Bruce Springsteen , Black Sabbath ’s Tony Iommi, Eric Clapton , Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood and many more.

He also made a cameo appearance in a recent episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm , and announced details of a career-spanning compilation, titled ‘Best Of Bruce Springsteen’ – due for release on Friday, April 19 via Sony Music.

Later this summer, The Boss is set to return to this side of the pond for  his 2024 UK and Ireland tour – find any remaining tickets here .

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Crazy Horse’s Billy Talbot on Neil Young, the ragged glory of their live shows, and the road ahead

There is acoustic Neil Young. There is solo Neil Young. But there is no Neil Young like Crazy Horse’s Neil Young: Some wild alchemy explodes from the gate, kicks up red dirt, never relents.

For original Crazy Horse bassist Billy Talbot, the ride is as natural as breathing.

“It’s just the way it’s supposed to be,” Talbot, 80, says of the chemistry between Young and the band, a kinship formed more than half a century ago. “When Neil straps on that electric guitar, the Horse plays with him. We just do it. We don’t think about it. That’s the key.”

Perhaps no album better captures that spirit than 1990′s “Ragged Glory.”

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So for Young and Crazy Horse to play “Ragged Glory” in its entirety, live, and then release the fiery show last month as the album “Fu##in’ Up,” feels like a gift to fans. Young writes in the liner notes: “made this for Horse lovers … The Horse is runnin’ … I don’t want to mess with the vibe.”

Recorded at a private show in Toronto in November, it offers new tweaks for fans — like the addition of some classic Young harmonica, always a crowd-pleaser. Save for “Farmer John,” a cover, Young renamed every “Ragged Glory” track with a lyric from that song: “Country Home” becomes “City Life.” “Over and Over” is now “Broken Circle.” “Days That Used to Be” is “To Follow One’s Own Dream.”

Original Horse members Talbot and Ralph Molina — along with new member Micah Nelson, Willie’s son — will jam with Young on the first Young & Horse tour in more than a decade, which includes a date May 17 at the Xfinity Center in Mansfield. (Nelson also played on “Fu##in’ Up,” along with Nils Lofgren. Lofgren is touring now with Bruce Springsteen.)

Ahead of the tour, Talbot spoke by Zoom from his South Dakota ranch about how those plans came together, his admiration for Young, his early friendships with his Crazy Horse bandmates, and creating a sound that could stop traffic — literally.

Q. I was starting to think we wouldn’t get another show in Massachusetts. How did this new tour and album come together?

A. I guess it just had to. We’ve recorded, I think, three albums in the last couple of years. Because of the pandemic we didn’t tour. Then [in September 2023] we did shows at the Roxy for charity [ the Bridge School and the Painted Turtle ]. That brought us together.

At the Roxy we did [the full albums] “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” and “Tonight’s the Night.” In Toronto we decided to do “Ragged Glory.” It was a lot of fun. We’d hardly played those songs live through the years. The audience loved it. It wound up being recorded, because we usually record everything. Neil called me up later and said: “You should hear this! It’s great!”

Q. Why rename the songs?

A. You’ll have to ask Neil.

Q. Micah Nelson is touring with you and played on the album. Both he and Lukas [Nelson, his brother and frontman of Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, named after a Young song] often play with Neil, and fit in so naturally. Is Micah part of Crazy Horse now?

A. Yes. I would consider Micah as part of Crazy Horse. He just loves the music. He loves Neil’s songs, as we all do. We’re lucky we have Neil writing such great songs. They really sustain us.

Q. How did you meet Neil?

A. Back in the day, we were young puppies, trying to get along and make music. That’s all we were interested in doing. [The late] Danny [Whitten] and I and Ralph started playing in my garage up in Laurel Canyon. Cars would go by and stop and listen.

Q. Oh, wow.

A. Well, they had no choice. Traffic would jam up.

Q. [Laughs] OK.

A. But they seemed to enjoy it. In any case, Neil came along, then he came up to the house. We just started getting together after that. All we need to do is give him the beat. It was the right beat. He liked it. That’s the story and it’s been the same ever since.

Q. You were born in New York, and [have been] singing since 14. How did you go from there to bass?

A. I was in vocal groups back in New York in the bebop days. So was Ralph, in vocal groups in New York. [In Los Angeles] Ralph and I and Danny Whitten started singing together. Then we figured we better start learning how to play. I had a piano in my basement. Ralph sat on a stool with a telephone book on a chair, and a tambourine hanging on the corner of the chair as the hi-hat. Danny played guitar. It wasn’t bad with piano, but we realized we needed a bass guitar in there.

Q. Before that, you’d left high school and moved by yourself out to LA.

A. Yeah, I left high school and took a bus. All my friends knew I was gonna go to California because my mom and brother had moved out there. I was living on my own. I was 16. I decided to take a bus out to Los Angeles. Seemed like a good place to go at the time, especially — ‘66, ‘67.

Q. So for a time you were just making it on your own as a teenager in New Jersey?

A. Yeah. My mom and brother left. I wasn’t going to school anymore. So I got a job and made enough money to sustain myself. The grocery store owner on the corner would lend me money to take the bus to work; I’d pay him back when I got paid. Stuff like that. I was a young guy. People help young people do things. Then I eventually stopped working because I was working in factories and didn’t really want to do that. So I hopped on a bus for greener pastures.

Within a few months, I was singing and playing with a couple of guys I met at the Whisky a Go Go. The owner of the Whisky would pay me and Danny Whitten and a couple of other guys to dance with people, to make it lively. We’d get the party going.

Then Danny and I and Ralph started singing in the alley next to the Whisky. That’s how it began. Ralph and I have been playing together all these years. That’s one of the reasons the band works — the history.

Q. What’s Neil like to work with? Seems like he’s always got something cooking.

A. He’s an incredible artist. He’s come into his own through the years. The more he realized how much he could do, the more he did.

Q. Looking back on over 50 years together, what are some highlights?

A. Sometimes the music takes over and we get to this other place. That’s really magical. It’s happened all over the world in different places at different times. I think of all of that as one thing: this really magical place.

When Poncho [Crazy Horse guitarist Frank Sampedro] retired, we didn’t really know how it would work out. But recording three albums with Nils, and now with Micah on this — I don’t know what the name of it is. What is the name of this record? Do you know?

Q. “Fu##in’ Up.”

A. [Expletive] up. Something that we all do. Trauma and drama is part of life. [Solemnly, slowly] Why do I keep [expletive] up?

Q. [Laughs] The timeless question. You said you last toured more than 10 years ago. Did you think that was the last tour?

A. No. But then Neil started playing with Promise of the Real. We had other things to do. We were busy. Then Neil said, “Wait a minute, let me see what those guys are doing.”

Q. On that phone call you mentioned, did he suggest a tour?

A. No, we just talked about how great the Toronto recording was. Then he decided that this is an album. Then he decided maybe we should set up a tour. It came in bits and pieces.

We don’t have a master plan. It seems to be that the master plan is written somewhere else. We’re just following it.

NEIL YOUNG AND CRAZY HORSE

At Xfinity Center, Mansfield. May 17 at 7:30 p.m. https://premium.livenation.com/venue/xfinity-center

Interview was edited and condensed. Lauren Daley can be reached at [email protected] . She tweets @laurendaley1.