Neil Young has claimed victory in his protest against Barclaycard, which was due to sponsor his Hyde Park concert with Bob Dylan in London next summer.
He said on Tuesday that the show, on 12 July 2019, would proceed without the sponsor. “We are so overjoyed, so happy to be playing the show!” Young wrote in a new post on his website, Neil Young Archives (NYA), titled: “Sponsored by nobody.”
Young had previously criticised promoter British Summer Time (BST), which stages a series of high-profile concerts, all sponsored by Barclaycard, for working with what he called a “fossil fuel funding entity” and for announcing the event before he had agreed to the details. “That doesn’t work for me,” he wrote in a now-deleted post on NYA.
The promoter confirmed that the co-headlining performance with Dylan would go ahead, but would no longer be a BST show. A spokesman said: “Neil Young and Bob Dylan will play a standalone concert in Hyde Park on the same date, 12 July. All tickets will remain valid.”
The promoter said the rest of the BST festival programme, including performances by Florence + the Machine and Robbie Williams, would be unaffected by the decision. Young performed at the festival in 2014 under Barclaycard sponsorship.
Barclaycard told the BBC it would not comment on the situation.
Barclays received a D+ rating in a 2018 report by the non-profit group Banking on Climate Change, which listed the bank as a major funder of fossil fuel extraction.
Young’s manager, Elliot Roberts, apologised to the NYA community for not ensuring that they could purchase tickets first. A new post on NYA indicates that followers will receive early access to tickets.
Young recently criticised US president Donald Trump for his reluctance to act on climate change after California wildfires destroyed his home. “California is vulnerable – not because of poor forest management as DT (our so-called president) would have us think,” Young wrote . “We are vulnerable because of climate change; the extreme weather events and our extended drought is part of it.”
