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| (From Kansas City Star/Roy Inman) |
Aside
from the house lights fading down and cheers erupting into the cool summer night
air, country legend Willie Nelson's on-stage entrance at Kansas City's
Starlight Theatre was gloriously unceremonious. Coming after a riveting set from rising alt country artist Jason Isbell and Alison Krauss' nostalgic
bluegrass affair, Nelson's work was austere from the start. Opening with
"Whiskey River", he firmly stood in place with his weathered guitar
Trigger and nasally sang "whiskey river don't run me dry" before
his Family Band had set up on stage. Rather than dwell on the slinky vamp of "Still is Still Moving to Me", he spit
out lines like they were last rites. At 81 years old, Nelson has every right to
play up his legend. He could coast on past glories and no one would blame him.
But not once in his near two-hour show to a sold-out crowd did he kick up his
cowboy boots.
When
classics came, Nelson never lingered on them for long. Most artists would
anchor sets or close with a song like "Funny How Time Slips Away", not
Willie. He has enough songs for 20 shows and is blessed with the luxury of
tossing out greatest hits like they were garbage. He didn't afford the bluesy
ballroom number its proper denouement; choosing instead to leapfrog into the
aching "Crazy". I personally prefer Nelson's
effort to the Patsy Cline affair and last night reminded me
why. His punctured whine fully conveys the desperation of "I'm crazy for
trying" and live the line is devastating. But even "Crazy"
wasn't allowed to luxuriate at Starlight. Nelson and the Family obliterated it
into dust with the walloping "Night
Life". Mickey Raphael's harmonica wailed and Nelson soloed with
the steely-eyed intensity of a contract killer. The admission "it ain't no
good life" would've been toothless without their full-committal.
While
Nelson and the Family's allegiance to the material was mesmerizing throughout,
the show's middle was the most spellbinding. "Georgia on My Mind" brought the crowd
to a reverent hush with just the wobbling incantations of "Georgia, Georrrgia."
Bobbie Nelson's work on the keys was punctuated, affording Willie room to
sweetly sing his old song. In the right hands the number has the power to stop
anyone in their tracks and it was clearly in the right hands with Nelson.
It
was "Always on My Mind" though that truly
won the night. If the phrase "hindsight is 20/20" didn't exist before
Nelson cut his version of the Brenda Lee song in 1982, it would've been
invented shortly after. Few song narrators have ever sounded as wrecked as
Nelson in "Always on My Mind". Everything he should've done was
blindingly obviously, but he ignored all of it. Watch Nelson in the song's
rudimentary video. Around the 1:40 mark his eyes repeatedly look away after he
confesses "I just never took the time." It's the look of a man who
knows he'll never get her back. She had every right to leave and fully executed
said right. Despite the song being set to a slightly slower tempo live, Nelson
kept in that nervous flitting. More than his defiant soloing in new track "Bring
It On" or picking in the eerie border town tune "I Never Cared for You", his
nervousness was the most bone chilling. For a master wordsmith, it's oddly
hilarious that what left the biggest mark was a simple action.
"Odd"
is what has best described Nelson since the beginning though. Crossing over
from Nashville songwriter to singer in the early 1960s was "odd."
Releasing an insular concept album about a murderous preacher
and having it go double-platinum is "odd." Ending the night with the
one-two punch of goofy pot ode "Roll
Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die" and Hank Williams country gospel
standard "I Saw the Light" is "odd."
He's not "The Red Headed Stranger" as has long been suggested. He's
genuinely strange. And without his peculiarities, country music would be far
less interesting.
Setlist:
1. "Whiskey River"
2. "Still is Still Moving to Me"
3. "Beer for My Horses
4. "Kansas City"
5. "Funny How Time Slips Away
6. "Crazy"
7. "Night Life"
8. "Me and Paul"
9. "Shoeshine Man" (Tom T. Hall cover)
10. "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys" (Ed Bruce cover)
11. "Good Hearted Woman" (Waylon Jennings cover)
12. "Help Me Make It Through the Night" (Kris Kristofferson cover)
13. "Georgia on My Mind" (Ray Charles cover)
14. "I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train" (Billy Joe Shaver cover)
15. "Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground"
16. "On the Road Again"
17. "Always on My Mind" (Brenda Lee cover)
18. "Nuages" (Django Reinhardt cover)
19. "Bring It On"
20. "Band of Brothers"
21. "I Never Cared for You"
22. "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?"
23. "I'll Fly Away"
24. "Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die"
25. "I Saw the Light" (Hank Williams cover)
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