Going to see rockers in their 70s and 80s can be a risky proposition.

The desire to see a favorite artist “for the last time” is great. The odds that it will disappoint — and make listeners confront the artist’s, and their own, mortality — may be greater.

As someone who’s seen Neil Young live about 20 times, I can honestly say that watching him at age 79 perform Friday at Blossom Music Center, with his current band, the Chrome Hearts, was as satisfying and thrilling as seeing him 14 years ago with Crazy Horse at Cleveland’s Wolstein Center or even the shows at various venues in the ’80s and ’90s.

Maybe it’s because the elements that can make a Neil Young concert so magical have little to do with a certain set of skills that can deteriorate with age.

Even Young’s most ardent fans would admit his voice is an acquired taste. It never was a multi-octave marvel, so Young doesn’t need to bring along backup singers to echo the lead vocal and cover those notes that the name on the ticket can’t hit anymore. If he goes low when the note goes high, it doesn’t impact the enjoyment of the song.

His guitar playing always has been about feel over fleetness. Young never tried to impress with how quickly his fingers could move up and down the neck of that black hollow-bodied Gibson electric guitar. It was about the colors, and waves of sound and the emotions he could express through the instrument.

With the exception of keyboard player Spooner Oldham (who’s 82 and whose contributions seemed to be buried in the mix), the rest of the Chrome Hearts weren’t alive for Young’s “Trans” / “Everybody’s Rockin'” phase, much less Buffalo Springfield. But Micah Nelson, guitar, steel guitar and organ; Corey McCormick, bass; and Anthony LoGerfo, drums, filled in nicely for Crazy Horse. They added tight harmonies to the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young songs in the set and created a foundation that allowed Young to explore and expand on the song’s original groove.

Like he used to do with Frank Sampedro and Billy Talbot, Young would form a tight circle at center stage with Nelson and McCormick and just lock in musically with the other players.

That approach started from the very beginning. The first half hour of the nearly two-hour set only featured three songs — “Ambulance Blues” from the 1974 album “On the Beach,” “Cowgirls in the Sand” from 1969’s “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” and “Be the Rain” from 2003’s “Greendale.”

Young’s show was about as close to a greatest hits set as fans have any right to expect from the famously unpredictable musician. It included “Cinnamon Girl,” “Southern Man,” “Mr. Soul,” “Ohio,” “Harvest Moon,” “Like a Hurricane,” “Old Man” and an encore of “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black).”

The weird thing is Young released a new album, “Talkin’ with the Trees,” in June with the Chrome Hearts, his backing band for the tour. It’s called the “Talkin’ with the Trees” tour. He only played one song (“Silver Eagle”) from the album, and that was the first song from “Talkin’ with the Trees” that was the first time a new song had been played six shows into this North American tour.

On a tour for an album that features multiple songs about his ruptured family (according to the lyrics, he’s estranged from his daughter Amber Jean and not allowed to see his grandkids since his divorce from Pegi Young and his marriage to Daryl Hannah in 2018), he’s singing a love song written for Pegi (“Harvest Moon”).

The tour doesn’t abandon the themes of “Talkin’ to the Trees.” He’s simply using songs from earlier in his catalog to express them. “Be the Rain” and “Sun Green” cover his environmental concerns, while lesser known CSNY songs “Looking Forward” and “Name of Love” echo the message of peace, unity and empathy.Words written more than 40 years ago about a disgraced president in “Ambulance Blues” now seem directed at the current officeholder.

Those ideas were reinforced before he ever took the stage. The walkway down the hill to the pavilion was lined with a tent city of various political and environmental causes. His opening act was Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir, a soulful southern-gospel band led by a pompadoured man in a white suit who evangelized about nature and the environment and encouraged the audience to shout “Earth-elujah!” like the love child of Ernest Angley and Bernie Sanders.

I don’t know if I’ll have an opportunity to see a 21st Neil Young concert, but after Friday’s performance I wouldn’t hesitate to see another “one last time.”

Andy Gray is the entertainment editor of Ticket. Write to him at agray@tribtoday.com.