Willie Nelson – Canton – 2006

July 11, 2006

Although perhaps still a cowboy at heart, Willie Nelson traded in his horse for a tour bus, splashed with a beautiful canvas of clouds and horses decades ago. He rode through the neighborhoods of Canton in what Willie calls, Honeysuckle Rose II, a bus powered by bio-diesel fuel produced from Corn. Midway through the set of opening act David Allen Coe, Nelson’s bus pulled into the parking lot of CantonMemorialCivicCenter. Apparently he brought all the patrons from the Texas Roadhouse in Alliance. The first few rows of the audience were heavily occupied with folks sporting the same Texas Roadhouse shirt that Willie wore on stage the entire evening. Willie strode off his bus roughly half hour before he was due on stage, just enough time for him to give his cowboy boots a shine and pour himself a glass of whisky.

While Willie was readying himself for the show, a small group of men from Nelson’s crew were busy tossing out clearance merchandise to the crowd, including a Willie Nelson photo that read, “Peace on Earth” and “Willie Nelson 2005” buttons. The way people were fighting over these items make one think Willie’s braids had been chopped off and put up for grabs!

After the feuding over expired Willie merch simmered, an announcement was made about the six albums that have been/will be put up by Nelson this year. Six albums? I guess Nelson is trying to avoid Tupac’s mistake of waiting until he passes to release a boatload of material. After all, you can’t collect royalties from six feet under. The album bulletin was followed by an even more impressive statistic that I still find hard to believe. Willie has played more than 6,000 shows. Six Thousand!! That’s 16 years, 5 months, and 10 days worth of shows. No wonder Willie looks every day of his 73 years of age. Then, the words everyone had been waiting to hear, “In a moment, Willie Nelson!”
Minutes later, Willie and family stepped out from behind a curtain to massive applause and chants of “WILL-E, WILL-E, Will-E.” Nelson stepped up to the mic with the most simple of greetings, “Why, hello there.” Unlike The Allman Brothers Band and Robert Randolph and the Family Band, Willie Nelson and Family actually is composed (partially) of family. His only sister, Roberta “Bobbi” Nelson sits at the piano, and his two sons, Micah and Lukas are featured on lead guitar and percussion. Both Nelson brothers will return to high school in the fall when the tour ends.

I’ve been to more concerts than anybody on the face of this planet. I’ve walked among the hippies at Bonnaroo, crowd surfed with the punks at Warped Tour, camped with the rowdy folks at Country Jam, and danced around the burning lawns at Ozzfest. But the folks packed into the CivicCenter to see Willie soar high above all of those audiences on the odd-ball scale. Four seats down from me two teenage gentleman were passing two joints back and forth, putting both of them in their mouths at the same time. On both sides of me sat elderly women that couldn’t have been more than 5 years younger than the 73 year old on stage. Everyone was standing on their chairs trying to take pictures. People between seventeen and seventy were rushing the stage with cameras and camcorders, and security did little to stop them. Willie didn’t seem to mind one bit, either. He must have been quite confident that his security detail loaded up with whisky could beat the enthusiastic fans loaded up with beer on the draw.

Nelson ploughed from one song right into the next, with nothing signaling the end of one song or the beginning of the next. Willie got the crowd more revved up with each tune he strummed out. He wasted no time getting into crowd favorites including the campfire sing-a-long, Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys, Funny How Time Slips Away, and the beautiful ballad, You Were Always On My Mind. 6,000 shows and 73 years on this planet will take a toll on everybody, even legends. Willie’s voice doesn’t have the same tone that America fell in love with three decades ago. He had trouble finding the key on a number of tunes, fell behind the beat on more than one occasion, and sometimes his singing would turn into talking. This didn’t seem to bother a sole in the venue. They were sitting in the presence of a legend, an American icon, the face of the Wild West, the pride and joy of Texas, the man who’s music they would seek solace in during hard times.

Willie sated the audience’s appetite for songs everyone knows by heart. The masses sang loud and out of tune on classics such as On the Road Again and To All The Girls I’ve love before, and even joined in on the new songs, including his 2003 collaberation with Toby Keith, Beer For My Horses.

For nearly 2 hours Willie strummed out tunes on the same Martin N-20 nylon-string acoustic he’s been playing for over 20 years. He calls the guitar, “a loyal friend”, and named it Trigger, after Roy Rogers’ Horse.

Nelson is truly an American icon.His image and music spans many generations.It appears he may be near the end of the line on the touring circuit, but I guarantee as long as he’s performing, he’ll never lack an audience.When the road life becomes too much for Willie he still has plenty to keep him busy, including promoting use of biodiesel fuels, and sitting on the board of directors at Farm Aid.As for his plans after this tour, Willie is getting on the road again (pun intended) with CCR frontman John Fogerty.