Neil Young Brings Back “Hey Babe” After 47 Years
Neil Young recorded the song "Hey Babe" on April 4, 1977, with Crazy Horse and some friends at his ranch in Northern California.
After nearly five decades, Neil finally performed "Hey Babe" live on Tuesday night at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, New York. This special moment happened six songs into the set, which mostly followed Monday night’s performance except for switching "Harvest Moon" with "Tumbleweed" from the album Storytone. Check out this incomplete video of "Hey Babe."
During the same show, he also played "War of Man" from 1992. Over the two nights at the Capitol Theater, he performed five songs from the album Harvest Moon. While the 13-minute version of "Down by the River" from the first night didn’t make a comeback, he ended the second night with a wild version of "Throw Your Hatred Down" from Mirrorball, replacing "Roll Another Number (For the Road)" from Monday.
Neil and the Chrome Hearts will be performing next on October 5 at the Painted Turtle charity show in Lake Hughes, California. Stephen Stills and John Mayer will join them, giving Stills and Neil a chance to play some old Buffalo Springfield songs like they did at Light Up the Blues in 2023.
If by any small chance Neil performs "Will to Love," he will have sung every track from his Seventies solo albums live at least once. Here’s a list of all his songs that haven’t been performed live yet. If fans could choose his future setlists, we’d love to hear "Fontainebleau," "We R in Control," "Driftin’ Back," "Hawaii," "L.A. Girls and Ocean Boys," and "Goodbye Christians on the Shore." It’s surprising that he brought back "Hey Babe," but it shows anything can happen!
