North American Fall Tour Dates

UPDATED 8/18/08:North American Fall 2008 Neil Young Tour Schedule

There have been rumors floating around for some time now that Neil Young will continue touring this fall. This comes based on comments Neil made earlier:

"I'll be touring pretty extensively for the next year, year-and-a-half. That's what I'm focusing on. Playing for people with a great band is very rewarding. It's very good for me -- it keeps me in top form physically, and that makes me feel good."

There's not too much that is definitive as of yet. On High Road Touring, the listing for Wilco has the following tour dates with Neil listed:

- Canada: Sat Nov 29 '08 - Sat Dec 6
- U.S.A.: Sun Dec 7 '08 - Tue Dec 16

However, Wilco's website has no information on touring with Neil.

But the Wilco forum Via Chicago is buzzing on the rumor. Well maybe not everybody. Here's Wilco fan "giraffo" on the possibility and gives Tweedy and company some "advice" on opening for Neil:

Personally, I hate his music (with the expection of some of that Massey Hall album and On the Beach), but it goes beyond that. I feel like if you're still kind of (relatively) an up-and-coming rock band getting more mainstream attention, the last person I'd want to go on tour with is Neil Young. Why? a) he's just another aging boomer relic who is pulling out the "rares" in order to wow the audience that grew up on his hits while simultaneously egging on your overzealous critic fans to give you more praise than you deserve. Each member of your band can singlehandedly outperform him and has made better records on their bad days than this guy's best days. however, due to the novelty fact that "he's freaking Neil Young!" you'll never be given the credit ('you' being Wilco) you really deserve.

I mean, come on, to be fair, I don't like Neil Young but I think we could all agree here Wilco puts him out of business in terms of actual showmanship. His songs, not that he can help it, are either given a folk rock or grunge rock treatment and they never are given the room to breath life. Whereas, you have a band like Wilco, with two superhuman musicians and probably the most likable singer-songwriter in his age group playing songs of more dense emotional (okay, opinion) and musical (this however I feel is fact) complexities-- the craftsmanship of the mentioned bringing a tight yet spaced out sound. I feel like Wilco going on tour with that guy is Wilco not giving themselves enough credit. Yeah, he's Neil Young, but you're doing now what he did yesterday in terms of making contemporary, fresh, new sounding music. You're not recycling as much as your contemporaries are, the music you make is as new now is his was then. You should be the ones on stage, you can't help it that the music business has (for the most part) aged more intelligently than him and you get overlooked.

don't get me wrong. if you wanna go see Neil Young, go see Neil Young. But everyone should be going ape over getting to see him open for Wilco, not the other way around. I'm sure I'm the only one that feels this way, I'm sure I sound backwards to probably 99% of the people here.

So, one can imagine the reaction which ensued as Wilco fans rallied to Neil's defense and savored the possibilties.

If this pans out, it'll mean that Neil has been pretty much been on the road for a year. While he's been playing Chrome Dreams II material fairly heavily, who knows what this next segment will be showcasing?

Toast anyone?