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Willie at Stubb’s: 2003
Ambrose Bierce called habit “a shackle for the free.” Is that what keeps folks coming back to Willie Nelson’s shows? There they were again, thronging the amphitheater at Stubb’s on Wednesday night for the first of the newly minted septuagenarian’s three nights of shows.
This bunch, like every audience before, willingly shackled themselves to the Texas icon’s carefully honed half-century of hits, his indefatigably cheerful (and somehow healing) presence and the seemingly immutable rock in a turbulent world that is the Willie and Family set list. Forget about putting Willie on Mount Rushmore; he has become Mount Rushmore.
We know why Willie keeps showing up; as Willie Sutton famously replied when asked why he kept knocking over banks, “That’s where the money is.” Additionally, performance defines who Willie is. And besides, who wouldn’t want to be Willie Nelson for a couple of hours every night? But even if they’ve seen the set dozens or even scores of times before (Your humble correspondent caught his first chorus of “Night Life” 30 years ago), fans of all ages flock back for yet another fix, as faithful as Capistrano’s swallows. There’s a comforting ritual about the whole thing, with rites as strictly observed as High Mass. Eighty-five percent of Nelson’s set Wednesday was represented on the “Willie and Family Live” album from 1978 (and not a little bit of it could have derived from his 1966 concert recording at Panther Hall in Fort Worth). So those there for the music, as opposed to those content to simply bask in Willie’s beatific glow, had to content themselves with seeking out nuance without expecting novelty. OK, then. There were (as there are in every Nelson performance) some unique moments in this particular two-hour-and-10-minute, 41-song set: a down-and-dirty extended blues workout that wound its way into “Milkcow Blues”; an especially elegant guitar solo that gilded the mournfully gorgeous ballad “Angel Flying Too Close To the Ground”; a particularly impassioned take on Irving Berlin’s vintage “Blue Skies”; a fresh boogie-woogie treatment of Hank Williams’ “Move It On Over”; the flamenco-style guitar solos that bracketed “The Great Divide” and the Django Reinhardt instrumental “Nuages” (Nelson’s guitar work is, as always, a fluid and supple marvel). Any other astute listener could come up with his or her own inventory of revelatory moments. Those little moments, as much as the ritual, and the chance to see an American original plying his craft, are what keep me coming back to Willie Nelson shows. We, like him I suppose, will keep wearing those shackles a good while longer, and will be happy to do so.
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Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Willie Nelson
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By LA temp
February 26, 2008 2:10 PM | Link to this
This may be somewhat fun for those who’ve never seen it, but believe me, most of the places to see live music in Austin blow away the Viper Room. It’s a tiny club on Sunset, and the sound wasn’t all that great when I went. Antone’s is way better, The Mohawk blows it away.
By Mo
February 26, 2008 6:52 PM | Link to this
The Viper Room rocks on Sunset! There have been many great artists passing through The Viper Room since 1993, such as Johnny Cash, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Stone Temple Pilots, Bruce Springsteen, Oasis, Counting Crows, Lenny Kravitz, Pearl Jam, Iggy Pop, Porno For Pyros, Sandra Bernhardt, Sheryl Crow, Hunter S. Thompson, HIM, Queens of the Stone Age, Elvis Costello, Maroon 5 and many more. It is an intimate club to see amazing bands up close… The line-up for the Austin show is going to be something you will want to see!
By brenna davenport-leigh
February 27, 2008 5:18 PM | Link to this
Where can I email you a release about an upcoming show at the Cactus Cafe? Thanks, Brenna