A couple of months after releasing the live LP As Time Explodes, which chronicles his 2025 summer tour with the Chrome Hearts, Neil Young has quietly released a free companion concert film, Corduroy Plants, on the Neil Young Archives. The hourlong, 11-song film centers around most of the songs from As Time Explodes, but lacks “After the Gold Rush” and “Looking Forward.”
Like many of Young’s recent films, Corduroy Plants was directed by his wife, Daryl Hannah. It’s unclear where exactly the individual performances were filmed, and Hannah occasionally cuts from the stage to show footage drawn from recent news events and moments throughout history.
During the Greendale epic “Be the Rain,” for example, news footage of the destruction of the East Wing of the White House is shown, along with brief clips of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. “Vampire Blues” is paired with footage of devastating oil spills, migrant workers are seen toiling in fields during “Like a Hurricane,” and images of World War II and the Holocaust are seen in “Cortez the Killer,” along with more recent conflicts.
If most artists of Young’s stature had created a concert film and released it for free to the fans, there would have been some sort of promotional campaign along with social media posts. But Young stopped using most social media platforms due to their connections to the Trump administration, rarely grants interviews, and didn’t even send out a press release. It was left for fans to discover for themselves on the Neil Young Archives.
Elsewhere on the NYA, Young updated fans on the status of the fourth volume of his Neil Young Archives box set. The first three volumes covered 1963-72, 1972-76, and 1976-87. This next one will bring the story all the way to the end of the Greendale tour in 2004. “The Volume Dealers have been busy,” Young wrote. “Volume 4 of the Archives is underway, entering the completion phase for all songs we have uncovered over the last two or three years.”
Also on the horizon is Second Song, a new album Young recently recorded with the Chrome Hearts at Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La studios in Malibu, California. The material is largely brand-new, but there are two or three unearthed songs that Young wrote circa 1963-64 that have never been heard.
Young originally planned on touring Europe this summer with the Chrome Hearts, but he wound up pulling the dates for reasons he never fully articulated. But he reemerged May 22 for a surprise four-song set at David Suzuki’s 90th-birthday concert in Vancouver. He’s also on the bill for Farm Aid, which will take place on Sept. 26 in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
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