RARE: Neil Young Rehearsing for BobFest - 1992
(Click photo to enlarge)
Never seen this before - Neil Young in rehearsals for the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Celebration doing "Forever Young" solo on pump organ and harmonica. Wow!
— Ray Padgett (@rayfp) June 9, 2026
(When the camera zooms out at the end you can see a young Eddie Vedder looking on) pic.twitter.com/nDa82nagv1
Never seen this before - Neil Young in rehearsals for the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Celebration doing "Forever Young" solo on pump organ and harmonica. Wow!
— Ray Padgett (@rayfp) June 9, 2026
(When the camera zooms out at the end you can see a young Eddie Vedder looking on) pic.twitter.com/nDa82nagv1
A Rock & Roll Trinity:
The Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost
Bob Dylan, Neil Young & Eric Clapton,
Madison Square Garden, New York City - 1992
Labels: bob dylan, concert, neil young
by thrasher@PermaLink: 6/12/2026 10:42:00 AM
49 comments
>> Pre-Order on Amazon.com << 
Human Highway
Concert Review of the Moment
This Land is My Land
FREEDOM In A New Year
*Thanks Neil!*
![[EFC Blue Ribbon - Free Speech Online]](http://www.thrasherswheat.org/gifs/free-speech.gif)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being Neil Young
Pardon My Heart
"We're The Ones 
Thanks for Supporting Thrasher's Wheat!
This blog 
(... he didn't kill himself either...)
#AaronDidntKillHimself
Neil Young's Moon Songs
Civic Duty Is Not Terrorism
Orwell (and Grandpa) Was Right
What's So Funny About 
49 Comments:
Nice!
The Bobfest was broadcasted in German television and a journalist introduced the artists. So when Sinead O'Connor came on the oh so tolerant New York City audience booed her off the stage because a couple of weeks before in a TV show she had torn apart a portrait of the pope John Paul II. She tore out her in-ear-monitor-plugs and began reciting Bob Marley's poem "War". Neil Young was scheduled to follow this tumultous scene with his version of "Forever Young". In reaction to O'Connor's "unprofessional reaction" (as Neil Young commented later on) he started with "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" instead of "Forever Young". The German television guy must have had advance information about the setlist because he knew what originally had been planned and mentioned it on air. So thanks to the bigot audience at MSG on this day we never heard his take on the song with it's obvious ironic twists and subtext. Since then for me the line of "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" "I think I am going back to New York City, I do believe I had enough" changed to "I think I'm leaving New York City, I do believe I had enough". Professionally Neil Young did what he could to turn the audience into a different direction reminding them "This is for you Bob!" With his incendiary version of "All Along the Watchtower" he brought the show back on track: "Thanks for having Bobfest!"
I’ve seen this rehearsal footage before, can’t recall where or when, It’ll come to me…
What I do recall was Sinead tore the Pope’s photo on SNL. In NYC.
And it was not even 2 wks before so yeah, pretty freshly imprinted on ALL @ MSG in NYC. As I understand, she had some mental issues. But she was also an adult and as such her actions have consequences. Not taking sides here. Is what it is. A person using those precious 15 minutes should make better choices on how those 15 minutes can have longer lasting consequences. Much longer. And she got to cry on Kris Kristofferson’s shoulder. So there’s that. I think Neil handled it like he always does. By shredding it. Best performance of the Night.
“Bigot Audience”? Nice.
It just came to me: The Deluxe Bluray version of the concert includes 39 minutes of behind the scenes footage. Neil on pump organ rehearsing Forever Young.
ALSO:
Re SNL/Sinead. GE Smith was the musical “master of ceremonies” that evening. He was also the band leader for SNL. That “other” evening.
By 1992 this bishop of Rome who started out as a great hope to many that hoped for church reforms in the spirit of the Second Vaticanum by the first non-Italian pope after centuries had turned pretty much backwards already. From a central European catholic point of view a lot of his internal politics were a veritable catastrophy that then lasted for a couple of decades still to come. At this time O'Connor did not have mental issues but expressed what many people, good catholics among them, thought about this pope's positions. And looking back at these days the audience behaviour even more appears to be of an holier than thou attitude, today even a vice-president babbling theological nonsense is accepted by many Americans, good catholics among them for sure.
But yes, Neil Young definitely delivered the best performance of the night.
I’m no shrink. But mental issues are in DNA. Just a matter of time when & how issues manifest. Judgement call on her part (Timing. Not being spatially aware. READ THE ROOM) could be an early sign… but again. Not a shrink. 😎
Neil’s lyric “We got some ugly women there….” was regrettable in light of history’s reappraisal of the heavy sins of the Catholic Church in Ireland & worldwide. Sinead’s righteous expression of the Bob Marley classic “War.”
The song is as timeless & powerful as ever today in light of the racist rapist clown who has got us into a very ill advised war against Iran for no reason he can articulate.
But what does he care? As long as he & his are making big money, why should he give a f*ck? As long as Putin doesn’t release the videos & photos, the “kompromat” will stay out of public view. Putin must really have the goods on him to make him do every little thing he wants! Dump is a tool of Putin, it’s undeniable.
The Trumpstein files need not be released, for some reason? Jamie Raskin said he saw Trump’s name in there a million times!
The world economy is tanking in the meantime. Places running out of fuel. The standoff @ the Strait of Hormuz is a quagmire for us.
Trump is so cruel in general, so vile & evil! His Iran war is so pointless & reckless. Blowing up water reservoirs?! Just more war crimes by the US. I remember when we were the “good guys.”
Genocide in Gaza, your tax dollars at work, red or blue! Biden did it too of course.Trump is imitating Netanyahu to keep out of prison. World court sees so many war crimes from the US & Israel.
It’s a good thing I am listening to some very upbeat music right now. The Mavericks best of, my own lil compilation. I ignored them until Raul Malo died, RIP. He was bandleader, singer, songwriter. They covered Neil young’s Harvest Moon on the excellent live album “All Night Long, vol 1” & it was a very good version of the song. Raul Malo sings high, a bit like Roy Orbison when he wants to. No wonder there is a Neil Young connection.
Hot dang, it’s almost time for the new Neil Young album to drop! What the world needs now, is…
Rain on Sunday! Do a rain dance or thoughts & prayers. We need a deluge Sunday.
Mother Nature bring it please!
Love, Your Brother Alan in Seattle
Alan,
Watching the utube live stream earlier today:
DJT was being removed from JFK performing arts in DC, scaffold went up, tool belts dropped @ 4 pm EST. Wonder who disregarded THAT court order b4 his UFC 80th bday cage match on the lawn of the “peoples” house?
In other news, Muskrat is now World’s first (and so far) Only Trillionaire.
What’s next?
T Rump tower on the Moon? Mars?
Gives light pollution whole new meaning.
"Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I'll be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first – rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me." (John Lennon, 1966)
With the so-called "Jesus controversy" in the US Lennon provoked an anti-Beatles backlash that ultimately found it's end on 72nd Street New York through an truly insane bigot who later admitted that Lennon's statement in 1966 had at least partially motivated his act. Judgement call on Lennon's part (Timing. Not being spatially aware. READ THE ROOM)?
O'Connor said or stated what was obvious in Europe if one had paid attention to the many protests regarding child abuse within the church and by church officials. It took John Paul II. almost a decade to realize that these issues had to be addressed.
Actions should have consequences: The Beatles ended touring altogether after in the US the cultural Ku Klux Klan had taken to protest Beatles shows and David Crosby ran around with a gun under his belt.
Bobfest was broadcast on UK television too, and I remember being thrilled by Neil's performance of All Along The Watchtower - still get goosebumps when I watch it today.
Would have been nice to see him do Forever Young too - one of my favorites of Bob's.
I had forgotten Sinead was on just before Neil. If anyone's interested in learning more about Sinead's story I can highly recommend the 2022 documentary Nothing Compares. Very sad that we lost her at age 56 - far too young. When she passed Neil posted the lyrics from Kris Kristofferson's song Sister Sinead on NYA and I think they are perfect:
I'm singing this song for my sister, Sinead
Concerning the god-awful mess that she made
When she told them her truth just as hard as she could
Her message profoundly was misunderstood
There's humans entrusted with guarding our gold
And humans in charge of the saving of souls
And humans responded all over the world
Condemning that bald-headed brave little girl
And maybe she's crazy and maybe she ain't
But so was Picasso and so were the saints
And she's never been partial to shackles or chains
She's too old for breaking and too young to tame
It's asking for trouble to stick out your neck
In terms of a target, a big silhouette
But some candles flicker and some candles fade
And some burn as true as my sister, Sinead
And maybe she's crazy and maybe she ain't
But so was Picasso and so were the saints
And she's never been partial to shackles or chains
She's too old for breaking and too young to tame
Songwriter: Kris Kristofferson.
Sinead 0’Connor’s dad got sick of her & put her in a convent to be raised by nuns. She was given PTSD by that experience, without a doubt.
She was a protesting abuse she was aware of. She had lived it.
Nothing Compares To You. Sinead & Chris Cornell get top honors for covering Prince’s classic. CC still makes me cry when I hear that one. Both masterpieces.
Mental illness is not just in DNA. Nature, Nurture. Enough bad experiences can probably cause anyone to become “mentally ill.” And mental illness is SOCIALLY defined. Everyone said Sinead was crazy for doing that at Bob Fest. They were “right” because they were the crowd, in judgment. And she is suddenly crazy because they said she was.
She had been through hell in the church.
We who love the music of Neil Young, for instance, could be viewed as overly interested in this hippie Dream music.
Clearly anyone who would buy that many albums is out of their mind.
What if we were on a blog for Milli Vanilli? That might make it more obvious, but the point is, the crowd or authority judges the individual.
Flying a rainbow flag may be too much for some people to tolerate. They are intolerant F’ing assholes.
The way I see it, “Do what you want, just don’t hurt anyone else.” But burning gas hurts people, especially in generations to come.
So, Trump and the fossil fuel mafia are “mentally ill” (frankly for just too many reasons to list) because they are planet wreckers. Their selfishness & greed causes them to think only of themselves. Future generations are just gonna hafta deal with it. It’s a “Chinese hoax,” said the sociopath.
I love sociology. It was more fun before the “end of the world” was at hand.
It’s a good thing NYA4 is on the way! Shit is getting crazy.
Data centers sucking up huge amounts of water & energy, thus bringing us one step closer to the Terminator chapter.
But we still have a chance to protest & change our fate.
Sunday live stream Bruce Springsteen & Rage Against The Machine No Kings event!
Pray for a deluge of rain in DC this Sunday. Rain dance, thoughts & prayers. And lightning. Just one well aimed bolt from Zeus ought to do the trick.
“Let them Love” as my grandpa used to say. I wonder if he would have flown a rainbow flag on his tractor. Positive words anyway!
I hope you all have a very good day.
Peace be upon you! 🙏🏼 (emoji for a rusty old friend).
Love, Your Brother Alan in Seattle
PS - Send Thrasher your T-shirt money by June 14th please! Thank you!
@ Thrasher : Thanks so much for undertaking this t-shirt endeavor again! And not even profiting from it, extrinsically. Intrinsically, you are motivated to help us celebrate the epic Thrasher’s Wheat blog of your creation, design, & labor, nurtured & raised it to be a 30 year old! And what a beauty of a blog. Free speech.
Thank you Thrasher. I say it a lot because I am grateful. You have been intrinsically motivated & we T W readers & participants are reaping large rewards.
It’s a good thing you didn’t pick Ted Nugent as the subject of this blog. 😁
30 years of Love!
Your Brother Alan in Seattle
Cool. I loved Neil’s Bob fest performances. I think Tom Thumb’s Blues was a better choice, a stronger song to play, especially in light of the huge moment of Sinead’s just prior.
Neil refocused the audience & “blew shit up” with old black that day. Watchtower is the only relevant version after Jimi Hendrix made it his own masterpiece. Neil was somehow criticized by Briggs for the song performance but I think it’s perfect. The Godfather of Grunge doesn’t need some tacky crown. Mad respect for Neil Young (& Sinead O’Connor!). We all got older & wiser, hopefully.
Our president got older & lost his goddamn mind. We are society. We define mental illness. He has got it bad. I have seen photos of him making out with 15 year old girls at his beauty pageants.
He is a rapist sociopath.
Too bad his fans are in a cult. I personally had tons of criticism for my own party & politicians who were too old to work anymore. Why is it the Red hat guys can See No Evil with the Orange Shitler?
Come on. ICE gunning down & murdering US citizens right in the street for nothing? People held in cages & fed polluted water & food with worms in it.
Hitler designed his treatment of the Jews after the he read about how WE “Americans” treated the Natives. Genocide with smallpox intentionally distributed by the many white sociopaths who inhabited our country.
If you ask me, the natives should not have been so nice to the newcomers from Europe. They probably should have given us “No Quarter.”
Our lands were a paradise. What have we done?
Your Brother Alan in Seattle
T Rump: The OG Bigot from NYC. His name was indeed removed from JFK Center under cover of darkness & a HUGE Tarp @ 3A
The gathering crowd cheered wildly!
Happy Birthday to the Orange Ahole!
Mother Nature will have him on the run on UFC day!
In other news: Justice Dept approved merger of Warner Bros & Paramount. Will Neil stay or will he go? 🤔
Thanks for being here folks.
Wow. Great discussion on 30+ years clip.
Grateful for the folks out there keeping our traditions alive.
While definitely Gray area, fair use short clips of outtakes on a bluray deserves liberation.
Open the vaults. Let our music be heard and shared.
Dont let the bastards get you down. We all watched it live. The Sinead thing. It was more about how she did it on SNL. Arrogantly and in yo face. + the content. He was really obsessed with Forever Young at the time. I got tired of him doing it. We know he'll play the same song up to 3x at the same show. Tom Thumbs Blues is one of my most played videos. I also love the Chrissie Hydne I Shall Be Released equally. He was on fire that night. Then the Watchtower. Fond memories of Phil Lesh singing Just like TTB . That show is just hard to beat overall.
Lesson learnt: Speaking out on American TV when it comes to child abuse you have to play it nice, be a submissive victim ("The poor girl!"), do not tread on heros and saints otherwise you risk to be victimized a second time, by the audience, that didn't want to hear the story anyway.
But maybe to play it nice makes you a victim a second time, too, being fed to a beast for entertainment purposes?
Whats the old line about equal and opposite reaction. Get out my face bee otch . You were never great so just be gone .
I got to hand it to you herb. You got the news about Elon’s Trillionaire status pretty fast. You are paying attention.
So, mental illness, nature vs nurture. Either way, Trump has got it. Narcissism like the world has rarely seen. Or did Pharoah act the same way. He probably didn’t need to lie every single
Time he opened his mouth, but you never know. Brutal violence was a motivating no factor, I am sure!
But yes, Mary Trump warned us all about it. Trump has got it and then some. He is unfortunately a planet wrecker. That is what I always hated about him. That and the constant hatred, racism, and general ill will towards the average American & average citizen of the world.
He is a murderous maniac and we are watching his power unravel in real time. But, he will soon tell his troops / agents to shoot the protesters.
It looks like we are gonna need to do like Neil’s T-shirt from last tour proclaimed: “Take America Back!”
YBAiS
Thank you Dionys
Thank you for the words!
Your Brother Alan in Seattle
“Blow it out your a$$ Trump!”
Reminds me of a so called punk band that “toured the world” called “Ass Trumpet.” I met the front man dude & I would say mostly just a great name for a band.
When ai saw Trump’s name added to the Kennedy center I felt nauseated, again, in the waking dream we call Donald Trump. What a fucking prick.
You are invited to the largest party in the history of the world. The date has not yet been set, but it’s coming soon. Laughter, mirth, joy, high fives, bubbles of ETOH filling the atmosphere as the world collectively screams in ecstasy as the orange turd is finally flushed. Adolf Hitler’s biggest fan? We may never know.
YBAiS
The waking nightmare, I mean….
It might have even been lucky Neil didn’t do 4-evah Young that day. When Neil did it with the GD at Bill Graham’s passing, the sogg by failed to take flight 100%.
Not all birds can fly!
YBAiS
“Soggy song.” Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Nailed it again. YBAiS
Now I gotta wonder what that means until you delete it? Don’t delete. Just explain. Thanks Bro.
YBAiS
Figured it out to my satisfaction. You refer to the prez. He was never Great. Be Gone, indeed.
YBAiS
Alan pls shut up. How are we to miss you when you never go away.
I agree 100% w/ Wsanjose01 re:
Sineade. Never great. She blew her 15 minutes AND her career. Wrong time, Wrong place. Maybe when in Rome, air grievances THERE?
Also, maybe some here should use shorter brush strokes before painting such wide landscapes.
Americans ain’t perfect.
So far I’ve not seen perfection on any continent.
I don't think anyone here has said that Sinead was "great" to be fair.
As to wrong time wrong place she only switched to reciting War when the booing from the crowd wouldn't subside.
I watched some of the back stage film last night and an interviewer tries to ask her about what happened on SNL and she refuses to talk about it saying it wasn't the right occasion.
Someone on the Nothing Compares documentary says something like "People booing Sinead at a Bob Dylan concert?? What were they even doing there?"
And I think that is spot on.
As two of my comments have been swallowed "for technical reasons" I am trying again. I agree with Ron: Something had happened there and the audience didn't know what it was, playing Mr. Jones.
The longer brush strokes: a controversy regarding child abuse within a church that declares itself "catholic" which means universal or spanning the world, a concert celebration which united on stage some of the greatest rock & roll artists from Northamerica and Europe presenting their versions of how they understand an artist who has long been embraced by the rest of the world as an American (!) cultural treasure. In this peculiar case I don't have any small change or shorter strokes. Sinead O'Connor's statement was a small stroke, a howling MSG transmitted to the world was not. And sure: neither continent nor its peoples are perfect and so are churches, popes and SNL, and so was Sinead O'Connor.
There you are. I had a feeling.
No Kings Live Stream now! Bruce Springsteen, Rage Against the Machine, Patti Smith! Link:
https://www.nokings.org/livestreams
Love, Your Brother Alan in Seattle
Late to the party-again. I enthusiastically embraced the 90's Neil music, loved it, and Bobfest was, for me, a highlight. I am currently visiting our son and his family in Providence, Rhode Island, right across the street from Providence College. Beautiful campus and lots of St. Thomas Aquinas, who I love to teach (especially "The Five Ways"). I never even knew about the Catholic problem until I was an adult, but quite a problem, and hard to take with their moral absolutes. As I think about it now, in Trump's America, "who cares about a little corruption" or, better yet, it is probably a big lie. I write these words, as two morons are in a cage fight on the White House lawn.
Lou Reed also defend her. Admiddly Dylan himself who was, is a bigger rebel ? I don't have dogs in this fight. I'm not Catholic was never molested by a priest. My reaction would definitely be influenced by that . Of course . She made her point in a dramatic way got a equal and opposite reaction. She went out on that limb .
“It's gettin' to be ri-goddamn-diculous." - John Wayne.
This thread is so great, I figure I might as well inject my own brand of energy into it.
First off, a very happy birthday to our favorite President, and they're having quite the party on the White House lawn as we speak. UFC really isn't my thing, but some people love it, and this is America, which means we accept all things, whether we like it or not. Everyone's free to enjoy their birthday any way they want, as long as they're not hurting anyone. That's how I view it, anyways.
And for now, a possible peace deal in Iran? Gas prices starting to go down? Very good jobs reports the last couple of months? It all sounds good to me.
As far as Sinead goes, I'm spiritual, but not a fan of organized religion. She was a brave soul who left us far too soon. A great singer, and a tough old Irish girl.
And speaking of the Irish, what we're now seeing in Belfast is ACTUAL protesting, not the artificial bought and sold crap we see here in the USA. Burn it down, lads. Hopefully the rest of Europe will follow your lead.
That's all kids, Roger and Out.
I don’t know What Sinead was doing there either…tbh
Happy Birthday Dear Leader!
Thank you for ending your war. Amazing timing!
leavingmaga.org
This comment has been removed by the author.
Oh wow. I generally try to avoid political chat on here, but this is outrageous.
What is happening in Belfast is out-and-out racist attacks, with mobs of young white men deliberately attacking people of colour and burning them out of their homes. It’s a racist pogrom, akin to what the nazi SS did in 1930s Germany.
It is abhorrent, and one of the most disturbing things I have seen in Europe in my lifetime. All stirred up on X by the racist-in-chief Musk, safe from pogroms in his gilded mansion.
Ritchie, how can you support this? Terrified little children terrorised out of their homes by a racist mob, all because of the colour of their skin and being unfortunate enough to have been born in a dangerous country (and therefore seeking refuge). It is disgusting.
Fair comment - she was quite a big thing at that time, but obviously not in the same league as the other artists.
If some in the crowd hadn't booed her so much though, she would have sung her song in tribute to Bob and been gone. You can watch her rehearsing it in the backstage footage.
Well said and exactly right.
If Bob Dylan's song "Forever Young" is to be understood as an address by an older person to younger ones, Sinead O'Connor at 26 in 1992 would have been the stage representation of this younger generation (of protest singers). Neil Young's interpretation of Dylan's song following O'Connor then would have been a well thought out concept or message. I have not checked but I believe she was the youngest performer on that day, the rest being middle aged rock & pop royalty to dinosaur generation. She might not have been the "biggest act" but looking at the long list of accolades to her name there are not that many who achieved that kind of praise that early, not in Europe at least. As this thread in the end has left the controversial and meaningful but common ground (thank you herbsworld, wsanjose01, Ron, YBAIS, Abner, Thrasher, Thos) I'll leave it for now. I do not debate digital cannibalism.
I would like to know how much tax payer money went to pay for Trump's idiotic birthday celebration. To be free is not the same thing as "doing whatever we want." In fact, freedom is mostly about restricting the will.
Abner: Que Sedan Delivery.
“No One Knows”
Post a Comment
<< Home