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Neil Young pulls out of ‘corporate controlled’ Glastonbury Festival

Do you agree?

Danny Jones - 2nd January 2025

Music icon Neil Young has pulled out of Glastonbury Festival 2025 after claiming it has lost its identity and is now under “corporate” control.

The 79-year-old singer-songwriter, widely considered one of the greatest and most influential to have ever lived, was due to play the festival as one of the legends named on this year’s lineup.

However, despite lots of excitement around the veteran being given the nod over others from what has largely been seen as a pop-leaning pool (at least according to the detractors) in recent years, Young has now decided to drop out of the festival.

Sharing a short but open letter on his personal website, the highly-revered lyricist, vocalist and guitar player explained his reasoning for he and his band U-turning on the gig, claiming it is now a “turn-off”.

Neil Young’s latest ‘NYA Times Contrarian’ post explains the decision to drop out of Glastonbury.

“The Chrome Hearts and I were looking forward to playing Glastonbury, one of my all-time favourite outdoor gigs”, it reads. “We 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.”

For context, the BBC has been partnered with Glasto since way back in 1997 and Neil Young has already headlined the festival back in 2009, so this shouldn’t exactly come as a surprise.

“It seems Glastonbury is now under corporate control and is not the way I remember it being. Thanks for coming to us the last time!”, he continues. “We will not be playing Glastonbury on this tour because it is a corporate turn-off, and not for me like it used to be.”

The message concludes with him hoping to catch fans at other venues and a simple “LOVE Neil – Be well”, but the tenor of the somewhat abrupt update is that the ever-opinionated and long-celebrated protest song-writer clearly believes the BBC‘s influence over the festival has now grown too strong.

Known not only as ‘Shakey’ and the ‘Godfather of Grunge’ but as one of the pioneering anti-establishment figures of a generation, the Canadian was previously in the headlines for demanding Spotify remove his music after taking issue with Joe Rogan’s anti-vax messaging on his show.

Young’s music ultimately returned to Spotify in March 2024 after the two-year boycott but Rogan’s podcast has remained on there throughout, though some episodes were ultimately edited and/or removed entirely.

All that to say, the solo artist co-founding member of supergroup, Buffalo Springfield, is no stranger to taking on big business and companies if he feels he has good reason. Meanwhile, Rod Stewart will be performing in the coveted ‘Legends’ headliner slot at teatime on Sunday, 29 June.

Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts are looking set for a European tour this summer but if he’s taking on corporations and concerts under umbrella control, it seems unlikely we’ll see him at too many festivals or the likes of Co-op Live.

The better question is: do you agree – has Glastonbury Festival become too corporate and sanitised, or do you think it still upholds the same core values it had when it first popped up on Worthy Farm in 1970?

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Featured Images — Ross Belot (via Flickr)/The Manc Group