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Neil Young Ignites Sweden: Chrome Hearts Tour Begins with Thunder & Soul
Rattsrik, Dalhalla June 18th 2025
The fruit of this nostalgic yet rebellious moment came just after the Swedish love song, Whenever You are Ready, as the Dalhalla venue in Sweden proved to be a marvel to behold, and an ancient limestone quarry-turned amphitheater to host the European leg of the Love Earth Tour as Neil Young and The Chrome Hearts struck dynamite in nostalgia and surged defiantly in energy.
With almost 80 candles on his cake, Neil Young doesn’t just defy time he bends it to his will. And with The Chrome Hearts band at his back a fire-forged fusion of seasoned grit and youthful thunder the night became more than just a show. It was a resurrection.
A Stage Cut From Stone, a Setlist Chiseled With Surprises
It was like a folklorish scene: twilight of the Swedish midsummer suspended in the air, 4,000 fans pressing in the quarry and Neil Young walking in with his grey plaid shirt and Casey Jones cap and impressive stone walls forming a cathedral of classic rock to the right and the left of him.
He opened with the subdued but nearly brittle “Sugar Mountain” and right there and then switched the complete mood with the belting transition into the Greendale protest song, “Be The Rain.”
The mood: electric.
The message: urgent.
The delivery: unmistakably Young.
The Chrome Hearts: Not Just a Name, But a New Chapter
The Chrome Hearts might be a name that sounds like another band, but it is a new page in the world of Neil Young. Composed of the remnants of his previous partnerships (especially Promise of the Real), this band serves to revitalize his sonic style, yet at the same time not to forget the roots. The Chrome Hearts are not a side project. They’re co-conspirators. The name itself, resounding of both grit and elegance, seems deliberate one it is an allusion to something raw and real, but also eternal. Once on stage in Sweden, they were not there to play background to Neil but to confront him, to uplift him and to keep up with every turn of the set with him. Given that this artist has spent a lifetime resisting the desire to remain in a fixed position, The Chrome Hearts is an ideal mode of conveyance to this next extension.
Noise, Nostalgia, and Neil’s Relentless Fire
What transpired in the Dalhalla stage was nothing but sonic reckoning. Young was going through the songs like a bulldozer going through a house, even though I doubt that he could demolish a house that more easily, but it made me think of how a bulldozer would demolish a house. There was a buzzing, raw and mangled and unapologetically jagged at him as he pulled finger across the strings, straining and screaming like a storm on stone. There was also a nostalgia running through every familiar riff and lyric, reminding of decades of protest, love, loss and rebellion. Worse than all, there was incessant fire. The songs such as FuckinUp and HeyHeyMyMy were not played as oldies they were not staged in a way using classic sounds; they were released in a new angry form, with the new strength. It was not a victory lap. It was a man who had something to prove in him, still striking matches and seeing them go out.
A Softer Side: Reflection Beneath the Stars
Following the electric madness of the first half came a quiet change of atmosphere as Neil Young had the audience in silence. He was sitting there on the drum riser with his acoustic guitar, weathered voice steady, and his voice snaking through the open air with quiet intensity as he performed The Needle and the Damage Done. It was a time of naked truth, and then the brilliant repose of the song of the Harvest Moon, when time stood absolutely still. The music was so small in the silence of the quarry, under an overcast sky that never darkened, as though ready at any moment to turn to center stage one of these old cronies of the music, as at a camp-fire tale, that it seemed actually to happen. The warm sounds of the songs with soft organ work of Spooner Oldham enclosed the songs, and the audience, which up till now had been howling, fell into the state of revere silence. Despite the furiousness and all the noise, it is this smaller part of him, where he is weak and contemplating and all too human that makes us understand why he still matters.
A Fist in the Air Finale
The night capped with a thunderous encore “Rockin’ in the Free World.”
It was rebellion and resolve—an almost 80-year-old force of nature hurling truth into the night, his guitar roaring like a revolution refusing to fade.
With peace signs raised and fists pumping, the crowd knew this wasn’t just nostalgia. It was still a call to action.
Chrome Hearts Spirit, On and Off the Stage
It is interesting to mention here how the name of this band, Chrome Hearts jewelry, chimes with this tour like a bell. Besides the name of the band, it suggests the flavour of rebellion and sophistication that is implied both in the music and the fashion line.
Whether intentional or not, the overlap between band and brand speaks volumes. This wasn’t just a show, it was a living embodiment of attitude, art, and authenticity.
Setlist: Neil Young & The Chrome Hearts – June 18, 2025
Venue: Dalhalla, Rättvik, Sweden
- Sugar Mountain
- Be The Rain
- When You Dance I Can Really Love
- Cinnamon Girl
- Fuckin’ Up
- Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)
- The Needle and the Damage Done
- Harvest Moon
- Looking Forward
- Sun Green
- Love and Only Love
- Like a Hurricane
- Name of Love
- Old Man
Encore: Rockin’ in the Free World
Final Thoughts: A Tour Worth Following
For fans in the UK, France, Germany, and beyond, the Love Earth Tour 2025 is just beginning. But if the Sweden show is anything to go by, expect nights full of ferocity, vulnerability, and musical alchemy.
And for anyone still wondering whether Neil Young “still has it”
he never lost it.He just recast it in stone, echoing through a quarry in Sweden.
