Spy Review: Graham Nash Launches 2025 Tour in Easton

An extraordinary experience with the legendary songwriter and singer, Graham Nash, on the Avalon stage provided sold-out audiences with a tour through his live, his loves and his music. The performance, running over two hours, was a perfect way to spend an evening with an individual who describes himself as a simple man and has been a part of our lives for several decades.

Sunday evening there were no fewer than four encore songs performed for an audience that had little interest in leaving and performers that seemed to feel the same way.

The weekend performance launched an extraordinary 2025 tour for Nash and his remarkable musicians. Here are the locations of shows for the next several months.

Many of the songs can be heard on his most recent (2023) album, NOW. You can find it HERE if you wish to listen.

Returning home from the concert, I wanted to be reminded of Graham Nash’s incredible life and found the biography below on his site. The songs from the past were performed throughout the evening, accompanied by his stories about how they came to be written.

Here are excerpts from the biography that appears on his homepage where you will find much more along with links to his albums.

Legendary artist Graham Nash, as a founding member of both the Hollies and Crosby, Stills and Nash, is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee who has seen rock history unfold at some of its seminal moments – from the launch of the British to the birth of the Laurel Canyon movement a year later. He is an extraordinary Grammy Award® winning renaissance artist, and self-described “simple man” who has contributed a wealth of songs to the popular music canon. Nash was inducted twice into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, for his work with CSN and for his work as a solo artist.

NOW, Nash’s most recent studio album (May 2023), stays true to his six-decade mission – observing the human experience through the lens of a Northern boy. His recent songs range from the intensely political rallying cry of “Stand Up,” and a scorching indictment of MAGA in “Golden Idols,” to the fervent hope that we are leaving the kids “A Better Life,” co-written with George Merrill (of “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” renown). “Buddy’s Back,” with Hollies co-founder Allan Clarke contributing vocal harmony, celebrates the enduring influence of both Buddy Holly and the Hollies in their lives, harkening back to that Christmas 1962, when they gave the Hollies its name.

In between the releases of This Path Tonight (Nash’s previous studio album, released in 2016) and Graham Nash: Live, he and Joel Bernstein, his long-time aide-de-camp curated the archival collection, Over The Years… (2018). The 30-song double-CD contains one disc of Nash’s best known songs with CSNY, CSN, the Crosby-Nash duo and as a solo artist; the other disc comprises 15 released and unreleased demos.

Nash’s remarkable body of work as a songwriter began with his contributions to the Hollies’ British Invasion opus from 1964 to ’68, including “Stop Stop Stop,” “On A Carousel,” “Carrie Anne,” and “King Midas In Reverse.”

Towering above virtually everything that Graham Nash has accomplished in his long and multi-faceted career, stands the litany of songs that he has written and introduced to the soundtrack of our lives for nearly six decades.

The original classic union of Crosby, Stills & Nash (&Young) lasted but twenty months. Yet their songs are lightning rods embedded in our DNA, starting with Nash’s “Marrakesh Express,” “Pre-Road Downs” and “Lady Of the Island,” from the first Crosby, Stills & Nash LP (1969).

Nash’s career as a solo artist took flight in 1971, with the two aforementioned albums further showcasing the depths of his abilities as a singer and songwriter: his solo debut Songs For Beginners (with “Chicago/We Can Change the World” and “Military Madness”), and Wild Tales released in 1974 (with “Prison Song,” “Oh! Camil,” and “You’ll Never Be the Same”).

Three compositions on Songs For Beginners reflect back on the storied breakup of Nash and Joni Mitchell, “Better Days,” “I Used To Be A King” (which recalibrates the Hollies’ “King Midas In Reverse”), and “Simple Man.” A fourth song, “Wounded Bird” concerned the aftermath of Stills’ breakup with Judy Collins. “Military Madness” was dedicated to Nash’s parents, who quietly and bravely brought up their children in post-WWII England. “Chicago/We Can Change the World” was a plea to CSNY bandmates Stills and Young to join him and Crosby at a benefit concert for the defense of the Chicago Eight, (“won’t you please come to Chicago/ just to sing”).

1974’s Wild Tales addressed (among other issues) unfair jail terms for minor offenses (“Prison Song”) and the unfair treatment of Vietnam vets (“Oh! Camil,” inspired by Scott Camil, decorated founder of Vietnam Veterans Against the War). In his 2013 autobiography, Wild Tales, Nash described the eponymous Lp as “a good collection of songs but dark and moody, which was where I was at the time … in a deep emotional hole.” The autobiography is an engrossing, no-holds-barred look at his remarkable career and the music that defined a generation. The book landed him on the New York Times Best Sellers list and was released in paperback in late 2014.

The most resilient, long-lived and productive partnership to emerge from the CSNY camp was launched (before Nash’s Wild Tales) with the eponymously titled Graham Nash/David Crosby (1972), bookended by Nash’s “Southbound Train” as the opening track and “Immigration Man” as the closer. The duo contributed further to the soundtrack of the ’70s on their back-to-back Lps, Wind On the Water (1975) and Whistling Down the Wire (1976).

Nash’s passionate voice is frequently heard in support of peace, and social and environmental justice. The No Nukes/Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE) concerts he organized with Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt in 1979, remain seminal benefit events.

In recognition for his contributions as a musician and philanthropist, Nash was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth. While continually building his musical legacy, Nash is also an internationally renowned photographer and visual artist.

A photographer since the age of ten, Nash’s photos have been shown in galleries and museums worldwide. His company Nash Editions’ original IRIS 3047 digital printer and one of its first published works—Nash’s 1969 portrait of David Crosby— is now housed in the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution. A collection of his photos is featured in the book A Life in Focus: The Photography of Graham Nash which was released in November 2021 by Insight Editions.

Nash’s lifelong commitment to his work is unwavering. His inspiration is simple: “All the things we stood for, that love is better than hatred, that peace is better than war, that we have to take care of our fellow human beings, because that’s all we have on this planet – those things are still true today. I need to know that I’ve brought something into the world that was positive and not negative.”

(May 2024)