The first of what Young envisions will ultimately be four or five installments (each spanning roughly a 10-year period of his career), Archives Volume 1 is, to put it lightly, massive. He’s been knee-deep in a journey through his past, and now, with the release of the long-delayed, nearly 20-years-in-the-making Neil Young Archives Volume 1, 1963-1972, so are his fans. “So we wanted to get him out there.”īut beyond an easy laugh, there’s another reason Young has been unearthing songs like “The Sultan” and “Burned” on recent tours. “We had one lying around backstage,” he says, referring to either a sultan’s outfit, or perhaps an actual sultan.

The reference was probably lost on all but the most devoted fans in attendance, and Young added an extra layer of absurdity to his performance by having a man dressed as a sultan bang on a gong to introduce the song.ĭiscussing this episode today, Young finds it all rather amusing. Last year, for instance, Young took to performing “The Sultan,” a twangy, Hank Marvin–inspired instrumental that he recorded in 1963 while a teenager in Canada, with his first real band, the Squires. But Young’s been in a different kind of mood lately. With that, Young and his band launch into the jangly, upbeat “Burned,” a not-quite-unfamiliar, but certainly not well-known, tune he first cut with Buffalo Springfield back in 1966, and which he once identified as his “first vocal ever done in a studio.” Since that day more than 40 years ago, the song has rarely, if ever, been played live. Last year Young turned 63, but tonight he’s been stomping the stage and flailing his body with abandon, all the while coaxing some incredibly gnarly, earsplitting tones-even for him-from “Old Black,” the heavily modified 1953 Les Paul goldtop that in its own way looms as large in music history as Young does. Taking into account live discs, soundtracks, projects with other bands, and the nebulous nature of what exactly constitutes an “official” album in Young’s catalog, it’s probably closer to being his 50th.

Young is nearing the end of a European tour in support of Fork in the Road, which is, roughly speaking, the 34th or so album of his solo career. His hair is grey, and wild as ever, with bushy mutton-chop sideburns framing either side of his face. He’s wearing baggy blue jeans, sneakers and a corduroy button-down over a faded black T-shirt. It’s June 2009, and Neil Young is standing center stage at the O2 in Dublin, an ultra-modern, orb-like arena that seems as much a food court and concession stand as it does a music venue.

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