Photo by Erik Kabik
Don’t mess with Neil Young’s guitar.
Officials at the BottleRock Napa Valley festival found that out the hard way on May 25. As Young and his band performed “Rockin’ In The Free World” at the California event, they flew past the festival’s strict 10 p.m. curfew causing organizers to cut the main stage sound.
Young ignored the obvious signal to leave the stage and played through his onstage amps instead. The decision to cut the music elicited a mix of boo’s and sing-a-longs from the crowd.
Apparently BottleRock has a history of unplugging artists, doing the same to The Cure in 2014 and Foo Fighters in 2017.
Click here to watch Young’s sound get cut (courtesy of journalist Jim Harrington).
WATCH: @Neilyoung gets the plug pulled on his set at @BottleRockNapa and Neil just keeps on rocking pic.twitter.com/CUr8ELdUhc
— Jim Harrington (@jimthecritic) May 26, 2019
10 Comments comments associated with this post
GOD
May 30, 2019 at 2:05 pmI like pumpkin pie and pussywillow juice.
All access, plus escort privileges.
May 29, 2019 at 9:20 pmThis was a planned “run-long”. The setlist was changed earlier in the afternoon to time the set-closer tune with the curfew. This is Neil’s neck of the woods, let’s remember. It’s show business, folks. Don’t get your knickers in a knot. 100% intentional and the media buzz has delivered exactly what was desired; free publicity.
Fred
May 29, 2019 at 4:13 pmCan’t help but feel that this was somewhat planned…
Long may you run
May 29, 2019 at 2:06 pmNeil is a GOD. Sweet n grungy n raging all in one…true to himself and his fans. Never miss an electric Neil show.
Long may you heart of gold run!.
Blackie n rust never sleeps
I won’t disparage another band or a fan of another band by attempting to compare even though so tempting,,,,,
To each his own
Neil Young Gets Unplugged, Continues Playing at BottleRock Festival – jambands.com – BorderNMVoice
May 29, 2019 at 1:37 pm[…] Photo by Erik Kabik Don’t mess with Neil Young’s guitar. Officials at the BottleRock Napa Valley festival found that out the hard way on May 25. As Young and his band performed “Rockin’ In The Free World” at the California event, they flew past the festival… Read More […]
Phish headdie
May 29, 2019 at 1:30 pmThey should have cut Neil’s juggler and put us all out of our misery
tom
May 29, 2019 at 1:28 pmFuck curfews. I absolutely despise multimillion dollar music festivals that impose their silly curfews. It’s Neil fucking Young. He can play as long as he wants. How much money does Bottle Rocket make for their local economy? Nobody’s being hurt by him going 20 minutes over. Such a stupid, power hungry, arbitrarily imposed rule.
MarZaPhiGar
May 29, 2019 at 12:58 pmDoug, you are a dick. Shut up.
BlueSky
May 29, 2019 at 12:00 pmBetween the year Furthur canceled and they refused to give refunds. To the multiple artist who have had their sets cuts short. You don’t really want to support this festival despite their great lineups
Doug
May 29, 2019 at 12:24 pmWhy? Rules are rules. You’d have to be a complete idiot not to know that they really mean the cutoff is 10pm at this point. If the town stopped issuing permits because of a problem, then the entire festival would cease to exist. Neil just put his ego ahead of common sense (again).