Neil Young has withdrawn from Farm Aid 2021 due to concerns surrounding COVID-19.
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Young, a Farm Aid board member and longtime performer at the event, made the announcement in a post on his Neil Young Archives site. “Lots is going on in our world right now,” Young writes. “I find myself wondering whether Farm Aid will be safe for everyone with the Covid pandemic surging. I worry about that. I don’t want to let anybody down, but still can’t shake the feeling that it might not be safe for everyone.”
Young continued: “All you people who can’t go to a concert because you still don’t feel safe, I stand with you. I don’t want you to see me playing and think it’s safe now. I don’t want to play until you feel safe, and it is indeed, safe. My soul tells me it would be wrong to risk having anyone die because they wanted to hear music and be with friends.”
Farm Aid 2021 is set to take place on September 25 in Hartford, CT. The event will feature fellow Farm Aid board members Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, and Dave Matthews.
“While I respect Willie, John and Dave’s decisions to stick with it and play,” Young writes, “I am not of the same mind. It is a tough call.”
Young cited concerns caused by the Delta variant and the ability of vaccinated individuals to catch and spread COVID-19. “Since we know vaccinated people can catch and spread Covid, I worry about the children who could become infected after Farmaid, just by being with someone, maybe a parent, who caught the virus at Farmaid and didn’t know it,” Young wrote.
“There are already too many children in hospitals.”
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