On October 16th 2025, my band Harvest stepped onto the stage of Ireland’s National Concert Hall alongside the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and a specially assembled choir – the ‘Hearts of Gold’ – to celebrate Neil Young’s 80th birthday. Together, we performed 19 of Neil’s greatest songs to an audience of 1,200 people. It was an astonishing event – an experience that surpassed anything we had imagined.
How did this spectacle come to pass? It all began in May 2022, over dinner with my oldest friend and fellow Rustie, Gerry Desmond. We’ve known each other for more than forty years and have travelled far and wide to see Neil in concert.
Gerry introduced me to Neil Young (or rather Neil to me!) at the end of our teenage years, in 1990, when he made a tape for me with ‘Harvest’ on one side and ‘Gold Rush’ on the other. A few days later, I popped that tape into my Walkman and my life was changed. To this day, the memory of the first strands of “Out On The Weekend” remains vivid to me and I am transported back to that moment whenever I hear those opening chords and harmonica.
Over dinner, Gerry said to me: “Neil Young is 80 in 2025, you have to do something spectacular. What are you going to do?”. I immediately responded: “We’ll get the RTÉ Concert Orchestra in” and we both burst out laughing. And then we stopped laughing and looked at each other and said “That’s a very good idea”.
Gerry has long been a supporter of my band Harvest and he has witnessed our rise from playing to a handful of curious Neil Young fans to thousands of people in venues all over Ireland. We are a big band – there are eight of us. Myself, Sean O’Leary on lead guitar, Dara Mulhern on vocals/rhythm guitar/harmonica, Peter White on bass, John Fitzsimons on drums, Paul Brennan on pedal steel, Eugene Peelo on piano and Alison Blood and Nadine Ferris-France on backing vocals.
We got talking about it. What songs could we play? What songs would work well? Many of the songs on ‘Harvest’ would be ripe for an orchestral arrangement.
The gauntlet was thrown down. The next day I reached out to the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, essentially the state orchestra in Ireland, and pitched a show to celebrate Neil’s 80th birthday – “Old Man – Neil Young @ 80”. I had no idea if they would go for it and was fully prepared for a polite ‘no thanks’. But to my surprise, the orchestra’s events manager replied within minutes – and positively.
One thing led to another and after many meetings and discussions, we started to firm up on a programme – 19 songs; 15 with the orchestra, 2 by the band alone and 2 ‘solo’ acoustic.
As momentum grew, Eimear Crehan – founder of ‘SpeakUp SingOut’, a music education and creative arts organisation – got in touch about the idea of a choir performing with Harvest. I asked whether she could form a choir specifically for the show with the RTÉ CO. She embraced the challenge, and soon the ‘Hearts of Gold’ choir was born.
Eventually the day of the concert arrived. The show was long sold out. There was much excitement… and nerves! The orchestra was conducted by Gavin Murphy, one of Ireland’s leading arrangers and musical directors. We opened with a beautiful rendition of “After The Gold Rush” to rapturous applause.
RTÉ CO had commissioned arrangements for 15 songs:
• After The Gold Rush
• Only Love Can Break Your Heart
• Birds
• Out On The Weekend
• Harvest
• Old Man
• Heart Of Gold
• There’s A World
• A Man Needs A Maid
• Helpless
• Harvest Moon
• Unknown Legend
• It’s A Dream
• Four Strong Winds
• Rockin’ In The Free World
“There’s A World” and “A Man Needs A Maid” were standouts – musical time-machines that transported performers and listeners alike back to 1971. Listening to these songs, faithfully brought to life from the album ‘Harvest’ was a surreal experience, like being in the middle of a movie… or a movie soundtrack. Just utterly sublime.
The show was a triumph and greeted with a lengthy standing ovation. Some patrons said it was “the best show they’d ever been to”, which is very gratifying but of course untrue – there’s no show like a Neil show!
