Neil Young & The HORDE Festival, 1997

In the summer of 1991 Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell created the Lollapalooza Festival. Designed partially as a farewell tour for his band, and partially as a roving musical carnival the Festival headlined some of the coolest alternative acts at the time (Siouxsie and the Banshees, Rollins Band, Nine Inch Nails, Butthole Surfers). They also hosted the Jim Rose Sideshow, the Shaolin Monks, and a variety of non-musical acts, plus all sorts of political and activist groups were set up in tents around the festival.

It was a hugely popular and successful event. So much so that several other festivals popped up in its wake. The Lillith Fair centered on female artists, the Vans Warped Tour was all about punk rock and the H.O.R.D.E. (Horizons Of Rock Developing Everywhere) was a sort-of proto-jam band thing.

Founded by Blues Traveller the H.O.R.D.E. Festival lasted from 1992-1998 and supported such acts as The Spin Doctors, Phish, Widespread Panic, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Rusted Root, Ween and many more.

In the summer of 1997, Neil Young and Crazy Horse toured with the festival and I thought it would be fun to collect those shows. They played a total of 29 gigs with the festival. According to Sugar Mountain, all of them were recorded, but as is the nature of these things not all of them are readily available.

I always think that if a show has been recorded (and especially if it is of an artist as popular as Neil Young) then the recordings ought to be easy to find and download. But of course that isn’t true. Especially for shows as old as these. They get recorded and passed around in trading circles at the time, but then they get lost or shelved, or no one ever transfers them to digital. Or if they do they lose their seeders or the cloud hosting goes down and they get lost in time.

I suppose that’s what I’ve been trying to do for all these years – keep at least some of this music still alive.

So here we are, this is all the Neil Young at the H.O.R.D.E. Festival in 1997 shows that I could find. I will once again ask if you have any of the missing shows, please let me know. Enjoy.

1997 – H.O.R.D.E Tour Compilation
1997.07.11 – Mountain View, CA
1997.07.13 – Portland, OR
1997.07.15 – Wolf Mountain, UT
1997.07.17 – Irvine, CA
1997.07.18 – Phoenix, AZ
1997.07.20 – Englewood, CO
1997.07.23 – Bonner Springs, KS
1997.07.24 – Maryland Heights, KS
1997.07.25 – Noblesville, IN
1997.07.27 – Clarkston, MI
1997.07.29 – Cincinnati, OH
1997.07.30 – Columbus, OH
1997.08.01 – Somerset, WI
1997.08.02 – East Troy, WI
1997.08.03 – Tinley Park, IL
1997.08.05 – Vernon, NY
1997.08.06 – Hartford, CT
1997.08.08 – Mansfield, MA
1997.08.09 – Mansfield, MA
1997.08.10 – Saratoga Springs, NY
1997.08.12 – Wantagh, NY
1997.08.15 – Charlotte, NC
1997.08.16 – Bristow, VA
1997.08.17 – Camden, NJ
1997.08.19 – Holmdel, NJ
1997.08.20 – Scranton, PA
1997.08.21 – Burggetstown, PA
1997.08.23 – Live Oak, FL
1997.08.24 – West Palm Beach, FL