Neil Young Angry About Dylan Show Announcement, Will Fight Sponsor Barclays For Funding Fossil Fuels
Neil Young is scheduled to perform alongside Bob Dylan in London’s Hyde Park next summer, and tensions will probably be high. Young has expressed some major disagreements with the show organizers, claiming that the event was announced ahead of schedule.
“I had no idea the announcement was coming that day,” he wrote on his Neil Young Archives website. “I was still finessing the art for the poster and trying to make sure that all of the details of the show were agreeable to me. Then, suddenly, someone jumped the gun. The tickets were put on sale and the announcement was made, all without my knowledge.”
Young also took issue with the show’s sponsor, the “fossil fuel finding entity” Barclays. The post reads, “That doesn’t work for me. I believe in science. I worry about the climate crisis and am deeply concerned about its massive global ramifications and my beautiful grandchildren’s future…There’s no doubt about it. It’s been a massive fuck up!”
“At the moment, we are trying to rectify the situation and will soon update you on the status of the Hyde Park show,” Young continued. “We have been talking about requiring a different sponsor as one option. We are quite confident that nothing like this will ever happen again. We’re sorry for this situation – it is – and shall remain an anomaly.”
Elsewhere in the post, he quotes his 1988 song “This Note’s For You”: “I ain’t singing for Pepsi/Don’t sing for Coke/I won’t sing for nobody/Makes me look like a joke.” There’s also a picture of the Barclays logo covered in oil with the words “Barclays The Dirty Bank.”
Young’s manager Elliott Roberts apologized to NYA subscribers for not offering pre-sale tickets in another post: “To say we fell short of our obligations on the announcement and pre-sales for the Hyde Park show is an understatement and we disappointed a lot of people. I personally really must apologize for this lapse because working as the custodian of Neil Young Archives is very serious to me. Neil’s life’s work has been mine as well. We will make every effort to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.”