Andy Greene
View all posts by Andy Greene June 23, 2026
Neil Young performing at Glastonbury Festival 2025 in England Samir Hussein/WireImage A couple of months after releasing the live LP As Time Explodes, which chronicles his 2025 summer tour with the Chrome Hearts, Neil Young has quietly released a free companion concert film, Corduroy Plants, on the Neil Young Archives. The hourlong, 11-song film centers around most of the songs from As Time Explodes, but lacks “After the Gold Rush” and “Looking Forward.”
Like many of Young’s recent films, Corduroy Plants was directed by his wife, Daryl Hannah. It’s unclear where exactly the individual performances were filmed, and Hannah occasionally cuts from the stage to show footage drawn from recent news events and moments throughout history.
During the Greendale epic “Be the Rain,” for example, news footage of the destruction of the East Wing of the White House is shown, along with brief clips of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. “Vampire Blues” is paired with footage of devastating oil spills, migrant workers are seen toiling in fields during “Like a Hurricane,” and images of World War II and the Holocaust are seen in “Cortez the Killer,” along with more recent conflicts.
If most artists of Young’s stature had created a concert film and released it for free to the fans, there would have been some sort of promotional campaign along social media posts. But Young stopped using most social media platforms due to their connections to the Trump administration, rarely grants interviews, and didn’t even send out a press release. It was left for fans to discover for themselves on the Neil Young Archives.
Elsewhere on the NYA, Young updated fans on the status of the fourth volume of his Neil Young Archives box set. The first three volumes covered 1963-72, 1972-76, and 1976-87. This next one will bring the story all the way to the end of the Greendale tour in 2004. “The Volume Dealers have been busy,” Young wrote. “Volume 4 of the Archives is underway, entering the completion phase for all songs we have uncovered over the last two or three years.”
