Joni Mitchell Sings “Both Sides Now” at the Newport Folk Festival: Watch Clips from Her First Full Concert Since 2002

This week­end, the New­port Folk Fes­ti­val made head­lines when it brought out of retire­ment two music leg­ends. Paul Simon returned to the stage and per­formed “Grace­land,” “The Box­er” and “oth­er clas­sics.” But Joni Mitchell stole the show when she per­formed (with a lit­tle help from Bran­di Carlile) “Both Sides Now,” “Big Yel­low Taxi,” “Just Like This Train” and 10 oth­er songs. Mitchell suf­fered a brain aneurysm in 2015, and had­n’t per­formed a full con­cert since 2002. Hence why the show was a big deal.

Get the full back­sto­ry on the New­port per­for­mance over at NPR.

Just Like This Train

Sum­mer­time

Cir­cle Game

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Joni Mitchell Pub­lish­es a Book of Her Rarely Seen Paint­ings & Poet­ry

Joni Mitchell Sings an Aching­ly Pret­ty Ver­sion of “Both Sides Now” on the Mama Cass TV Show (1969)

See Clas­sic Per­for­mances of Joni Mitchell from the Very Ear­ly Years–Before She Was Even Named Joni Mitchell (1965/66)

How Joni Mitchell Wrote “Wood­stock,” the Song that Defined the Leg­endary Music Fes­ti­val, Even Though She Wasn’t There (1969)

Songs by Joni Mitchell Re-Imag­ined as Pulp Fic­tion Book Cov­ers & Vin­tage Movie Posters