Neil Young reverses decision on canceled Glastonbury performance

Neil Young is back on the bill at Glastonbury.

Three days after announcing that he’d pulled out of a planned performance at this year’s edition of the venerable English music festival, the 79-year-old rock legend said Friday that the gig was “happily” back on his touring itinerary and that he and his collaborators “look forward to playing.”

Young had written Tuesday on his website that he and his band the Chrome Hearts “were told that BBC was now a partner in Glastonbury and wanted us to do a lot of things in a way we were not interested in. It seems Glastonbury is now under corporate control and is not the way I remember it being.”

On Friday, Young updated his post and blamed an unspecified “error in the information received” for his cancellation.

“What a start to the year!” festival organizer Emily Eavis wrote on Instagram shortly after Young’s announcement that he’d reversed his decision. “Neil Young is an artist who’s very close to our hearts at Glastonbury. He does things his own way and that’s why we love him.”

According to the Guardian, Young tussled with the BBC — which the paper said has partnered with Glastonbury for nearly three decades — when he headlined the festival in 2009 over how much of his set it could broadcast.

In March, Young put his music back on Spotify after pulling his catalog in 2022 to protest what he described as vaccine misinformation spread by podcaster Joe Rogan.

Young announced Friday that he’ll issue a previously unreleased album called “Oceanside Countryside” on Feb. 14. The LP was recorded in 1977 and features two sets of songs: one performed solo by Young and one performed with accompaniment by Ben Keith, Rufus Thibodeaux, Karl T. Himmel, Joe Osborne, Tim Drummond and the Band’s Levon Helm.