In 2022, Neil Young embarked on his first concert tour in almost four years, 15 shows that never strayed too far from the Californian coastline. For Young – subjected, like all of us, to lockdown restrictions – this was the longest period he’d been off the road since 1978. As a consequence, Coastal finds Young in unusually reflective form. “It’s going to be a real trip walking out there on stage,” he confides to driver (and straight man) Jerry Don Borden. “Focus somewhere else,” advises Borden sagely as he pilots Young’s beloved Silver Eagle tour bus along the highway.
Directed affectionately by Daryl Hannah, Young’s wife, we see him soundchecking in the afternoon sunshine, practising vocal warm-ups in his bus and finally taking the long walk towards the stage itself. “I’m fucking scared,” he confesses with only a hit of a laugh on the tour’s opening night.
Pre-show jitters or something more existential, nevertheless up on stage, Young eases into a familiar role, working the audience with the deftness of a stand-up comedian as jovial digressions on the provenance of his trusty pump organ or the quality of a nearby firework display pepper the set.
Inevitably, there is an element of rinse and repeat here: bus, soundcheck, show, bus, soundcheck, show and so on. What can we learn about Young from these routines, then? While tour bus natter ranges from the roadside burial of a dead mouse to Howard Hughes’ aviation experiments and the oil and gas platforms that cleave the Southern California coast, Young’s thoughts repeatedly return to the music he is playing on this tour. “They think they want to hear the hits, because that’s all they’ve ever heard,” he tells Borden. “But people like to listen to music and if the music is vibrating, they are there.” Young must feel vindicated, then when deep cuts like the beautiful piano versions of Sleeps With Angels’ “A Dream That Can Last” and Are You Passionate’s “When I Hold You In My Arms” are met with resounding applause.
“We might be getting old, but we’re not dead yet,” shouts one well-wisher as the Silver Eagle pulls out of the backstage area, heading back out onto the highway.
