According to multiple fan reports, Neil Young and Crazy Horse played their 1990 LP Ragged Glory straight through at a private birthday party for Canada Goose CEO Dani Reiss. The show took place November 4 at The Rivoli in Toronto, which seats a mere 200 people.
(We reached out to representatives for Young and Canada Goose, a winter clothing company, to confirm the reports, but have yet to hear back from either of them. Reiss turned 50 on November 7.)
The news broke on the Neil Young fan site Thrasher’s Wheat via a correspondent named Stu that head rumors of the show around town, watched from the outside as Young’s crew brought in the band’s gear, and listened in through a door in the back alley. “Security was pretty cool in letting us hang outside the backdoor and would keep the door open for as long as possible so we could hear what was going on,” Stu wrote. “The back doors were left open for the encore. Neil, Daryl Hannah, and Crazy Horse emerged from the backstage doors and were into an SUV and were gone.” The reports includes photos of the group’s gear outside of the club, including a drum from Ralph Molina’s kit with the Crazy Horse logo on it. Canadian rock band the Arkells were also on the bill.
Sugar Mountain revealed that the show was a 50th birthday party for Dani Reiss called Reverse Surprise Party – Age Before Beauty. Young played before the Arkells, thus “age before beauty.” The site also pieced the setlist together from fan reports and determined that they played Ragged Glory in its entirety (with the exception of “Mother Earth”), and closed out with “Cinnamon Girl” and “Rockin’ In The Free World.”
If this is true, and there’s little reason to doubt the reports, it would mark only the second time that Young has played a classic album show. The first took place in September when he played Tonight’s The Night and Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere at the Roxy in honor of the club’s 50th anniversary. It would also mark the first time Young has done “White Line” with Crazy Horse since 1976. They haven’t performed “Over and Over” or “Farmer John” since 2012.
It might surprise some fans that the man who famously sang “This Note’s For You” played a private party for a wealthy fan, but this isn’t the first time he’s done this. In 2016, he traveled to Paris with Promise of the Real to play a private show for Carmignac CEO Édouard Carmignac. He even let Carmignac onto the stage to sing a bit of “Fuckin’ Up” with him.
The lucky fans at that gig got to hear the live debut of the After the Gold Rush deep cut “Till The Morning Comes,” and an extraordinarily rare live rendition of “Cripple Creek Ferry.” (It should also be said that “This Note’s For You” was only about selling music for advertisements. Young has stayed true to this pledge, and even made sure this couldn’t happen after selling 50% of his publishing to Hipgnosis.)
What is slightly surprising is that he played the show for a CEO of a company that once drew heavy fire from PETA for their use of coyote fur in their jackets. The company suspended the practice in 2021, causing PETA to withdraw their campaign against the company. “PETA will now re-engage the company to push for an end to its use of feathers,” the organization said a the time, “which geese and ducks continue to suffer for.”
“We disagree with PETA,” Reiss told Forbes in 2019. “They are a small and vocal minority. They have radical beliefs that we know most people don’t share. What is important to the consumer is that we source our raw material in an ethical way a sustainable way and in a way that’s traceable. We have a transparency policy and it’s all on our website. We follow all of the local and international standards…We don’t engage with [PETA] since they’re not really looking to engage with us. They have an extremist agenda.”
Young returned the road this summer after taking a three-year break due to Covid concerns. According to a November 2 post on his website, he’s headed back on tour next year. “I am looking forward to playing some this summer,” he said. “We are looking at possible places for our Love Earth tour,” noting it would hit “outdoor venues for health safety.”
It’s unclear if he plans on going out solo or bringing either Crazy Horse or Promise of the Real as his backing band. Whatever happens, let’s hope he keeps up these classic albums shows. Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, Tonight’s The Night, and Ragged Glory are very nice starts. If he brings On The Beach, Zuma, and Rust Never Sleeps into the rotation, it could be one of the greatest tours of his career.
