"Reverend Billy" opens for Neil Young

[ZoWie]

Reverend Billy is a New York/ East Village hell raiser who had his first 15 minutes of fame for his Church of Stop Shopping, which would get him in trouble with the cops in the streets of Midtown every Planetary Buy Nothing Day. That became a lost cause, but he carries on with the Earthchxrch and a climate change message.

Neil Young chose his merry band to open for him on his upcoming Love Earth Tour. THAT was a surprise.

Fifteen of us fly out Monday night to join the Neil Young troupe in San Diego. Then off we go in two tour buses to 16 cities. The tour schedule is listed at Neil Young Archives. (Exception: Neil and the horse will be performing at the New Orleans Jazzfest without us.)

Details in all the usual places.

[ZoWie]

Neil Young doesn't agree that climate/conservation is not a sexy cause.

The latest dispatch from the front, aka the Neil Young Love Earth Tour:

The powerful thing about this experiment is that we are talking directly to people about the Earth’s crisis. It’s not graphics, mass mailings, or social media’s pixels. In the first three shows, the choir and I have played to 21,000 people. Our job is like an opening act, but also we are hosting the event of the LOVE EARTH tour. Neil and his partner Daryl Hannah are serious environmentalists, and they came to us to help them dramatize the meaning of the tour before Neil and Crazy Horse emerge with "Rockin' in the Free World."

Moving from our storefront Earthchxrch in the East Village, we gasped at the shift in scale, like a pleasurable version of getting the bends. When we wake up in the bus the morning after a show, the pleasure we feel is that we have blasted into the sweeping landscape of people messages like “Let’s make new kind of activism for the Earth!” ….and “Can we be strange enough to change enough?” …and “Love is the Earth’s radical gift." Earthalujah!

[ZoWie]

Another dispatch from the front:

Note: Our next Love Earth Tour show is in a Toronto amphitheater that is surrounded by trees that are scheduled to be cut down to make room for a water slide and luxury spa. A multinational is privatizing the surrounding beloved park called Ontario Place. Time for some good lovin'!