The temperature hit 100 degrees in Austin on July 4. This time, fans at Willie Nelson’s Fourth of July Picnic did not care. The virtual Picnic, thanks to COVID-19, was something new entirely. And, let’s face it, it was weird.
We got 40 minutes of Charley Crockett in the afternoon -- way more than enough -- and about 3 minutes of Steve Earle in the post-sundown finale. The early live sets were way too long for too little. I know folks like Lyle Lovett and Ziggy Marley had other stuff to do, but surely there were more local bands that could have helped carry that long afternoon load.
But the 2-hour finale was interesting and fast-paced. A stretch there in the middle made even the most hard-to-please Picnic fan pretty happy. The interviews desperately needed more context -- they were a combination of surprising new information and old misinformation. Some of our interviewees were good at telling stories and some were not.
If you paid to see the Picnic on the Fourth, you can replay it through July 11. Anyway, I viewed it again this morning (I was, uh, celebrating on the Fourth) and typed down some thoughts. If you’d like to view it again, you can follow along.
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1:10 -- They never tell us who this is, but the daring fashion choice of twin denim shirts gives Daniel Rateliff away. I appreciate opening with “Whiskey River,” but let’s keep in mind that Johnny Bush was originally advertised as being part of this show, but wasn’t in the finished product.
2:17 -- The “Fourth Annual” Picnic poster you see under the TV is a poster for the Picnic held in Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City in 1978. The “fourth” is a mistake, as Gonzales in 1976 was the fourth Picnic. All three posters are enlarged versions. The original prints were smaller. I presume they were chosen as decorations for this event and not part of Willie’s usual decor. I just wonder why these three were chosen.
3:56 -- I interviewed “L.G.” in 1996 in Luck. Glad to see he’s still with us. But that chopped edit of his interview didn’t help him out much.
4:59 -- I’ve heard a lot about Dahr Jamail, but this is the first I’ve ever seen him. “Probably the biggest star in the world at that time was Leon Russell. We asked Leon to come to the Picnic and of course he’s agreeing, but his management’s going ‘no way.’ So they say, if you don’t announce it, then he’ll come.’”
5:33 -- Geno McCoslin (who often blurred the line between promoter and gangster) gets the first of several mentions here, but the man who should get the credit for successful radio advertising of the Picnic is Woody Roberts.
5:44 -- Dahr Jamail: “I got a loan for my car for $5,000 and used that money to print tickets. We printed tickets, gave Jim Franklin a couple hundred bucks for the first poster and then I went out and bribed the mayor of Dripping Springs with $500 and the sheriff for $500 and rented the land out there for $2,500.” This is the first I’ve heard of the “bribing.” Will have to ask about that. It’s worth remembering that the Hurlbut Ranch had already hosted the Dripping Springs Reunion.
6:27 -- Ray Wylie Hubbard: “I think I’ve played at all the Picnics except for probably three or four.” It’s actually been more than that, but let’s give Ray Wylie credit for attending more Picnics than anyone except Willie.
7:41 -- Sorry, Mickey Raphael, the stage was not a flat-bed truck. And it did have a roof. The story goes that the roof came off a few days before the show and Eddie Wilson had a new one made in a hurry out of chicken wire and sprayed-on urethane.
7:58 -- “Well the first one was in Dripping Springs, and it was a shit show.” Thank you Freddy Fletcher. No, it was not on a flatbed trailer. “The funny thing about that Picnic was the money disappeared mysteriously.” Later on, the IRS wouldn’t think it was very funny.
9:10 -- Mickey Raphael is obsessed with roofs. The stage had a roof in ‘73.
9:45 -- It was awesome when Waylon Jennings played Luckenbach in 1996. But it wasn’t cool -- it was one of the hottest and dustiest Picnics. There was such a drought that year that Willie donated some of the proceeds from the Picnic to Farm Aid.
11:22 -- Sorry, Kurt Vile, Luckenbach has not hosted the Picnic “more than any other spot.” Fort Worth hosted it 7 times and Austin has hosted it at least 8 times depending on how you count the outlying communities. Luckenbach had a great five in a row, but it’s not the most.
18:04 -- This is the best shot so far of the beer cans “scattered” in front of the drum kit. What brands are they? Are they decoration, or was someone really thirsty?
18:30 -- Before John Doe leaves the stage, I should point out that X performed at Farm Aid II in Manor Downs on July 4, 1986.
19:53 -- Willie has long embraced diversity, and this year’s Picnic features more diversity than ever when it comes to Black performers. But still, it’s a boys club. There’s not a lot of women artists at the Picnic and I’d love to see more. Anyways, I like Devon Gilfillian’s cover of “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Cowboys.”
23:20 -- I suppose it’s the Aggie in me, but it’s weird to see “Goodnight Irene” at the beginning of the show. This was the last song performed at the Armadillo World Headquarters and I always wanted to confirm that’s where Don Ganter got the idea to make it the closing song at the Dixie Chicken in College Station, but Don died before I could ask him about it.
27:47 -- I mean, seriously. Use some title cards to introduce L.G. set up the year and the location that he’s talking about and let him tell a complete story.
28:46 -- “It looked like the U.S. troops exiting Hanoi,” says Mickey Raphael on performers exiting the ‘79 or ‘80 Picnic via helicopter.
29:05 -- Actually, it was the second Picnic that was in College Station, Mickey.
31:41 -- I wonder if when the artists signed up to do this, they knew the finished product would show the house band a lot more often than them.
32:16 -- I love Steve Earle and I love this song (a duet with Willie on Earle’s album), but I have enough small children that those hanging guitars are making me nervous.
32:55 -- There’s beer cans and blankets and lawn chairs amid the nonexistent audience, too. It’s a Picnic! Set design!
33:30 -- There’s no way Kinky Friedman wouldn’t show up in person. This is a nice song though.
37:40 -- And there’s no way Lyle Lovett wouldn’t be sharply dressed. Damn shame he hasn’t played a Picnic before this one. I’ve never interviewed him before and would really like to.
39:27 -- Are those Topo Chico bottles new? A little more product placement?
40:58 -- “I think that I was the date because I was the guy with the car.” I know what you mean Robert Earl Keen.
41:43 -- I’m gonna feel really bad if someone tells me it’s a skin condition, but right now I’m wondering what kind of superhero mask Robert Earl has been wearing that has left him with that sunburn.
44:28 -- Keen’s first one he performed at was in 1995 in Luckenbach. People started throwing their empty beer cans in the air to the point where it looked like a giant popcorn popper during “The Road Goes on Forever.” He came off stage and I was there to greet him and he looked at me and said “Did you see that?”
47:25 -- By the time this is over I’m going to know how to play steel guitar.
52:47 -- As we go from Robert Earl Keen to Ray Wylie Hubbard, this seems to be an appropriate time to point out I’m really missing Billy Joe Shaver.
53:26 -- This is the slow-dance version of “Redneck Mother” If you count playing the song in the car during the 2018 rain out, I’ve sang this song with Ray Wylie at 22 Picnics. Yes, I’m singing along right now.
57:40 -- This is what I’ve been waiting for all night: A reggae cover of “On the Road Again.” Or if not a true reggae rhythm, at least in Ziggy Marley’s wonderful Jamaican accent. I’m a sucker for reggae versions of country songs I like. I have no idea why.
58:32 -- The best shot so far of Jim Franklin’s poster for the 1975 Picnic in Liberty Hill. This poster appeared in rock poster book “The Art of Rock” and subsequently fake versions of it flooded eBay. The fakes were all distorted to fit an 11x17 sheet of paper. The original prints are narrower.
1:05:20 -- Ben Dorcy!!! The legend. Guy started off in 1950 with Hank Thompson. I shook his hand once. When he found out I was a journalist he took it back pretty quickly. For some time I’d always spot him running some errand for somebody at the Picnic. He’d move through the crowd and people wouldn’t notice. I wanted to tell them he was more legendary than whoever was on the stage would ever be.
1:07:20 -- I had known Waylon had written a song for Ben Dorcy, but I wasn’t sure I had ever heard it. It’s damn cool that Randy Rogers and Wade Bowen are doing this salute during their time on the virtual Picnic.
1:10:55 -- Two more stories about Geno McCoslin. The guy knew how to make people remember him. Again, the guy who was behind the Bob Dylan rumor for the first Picnic was Woody Roberts. If Geno stole his idea for Picnic No. 2, good for him.
1:11:54 -- Another Geno story. There must be some sort of anniversary or something. This time Freddy tells the bathroom/exit story that Mickey didn’t quite pull off.
1:13:00 -- Ray Wylie with the quote of the night: “You wanted to be a part of it. Each one was like a magical thing that wasn’t happening anywhere else in the world. … You would show up there early. You’d get there and stay, as long as you could. It was such an incredible world that you didn’t want to leave that Willie world and go back to the rest of it.”
1:14:00 -- Mickey goes into a long story here about Farm Aid II without pointing out that it was Farm Aid II or that it was 1986. I mean, some captioning here would have really helped.
1:14:26 -- I had no idea that Mickey Raphael played on a Motley Crue album. I bet you didn’t know either.
1:15:20 -- My wife and I spent this whole song debating who this was. It turns out I was right, but they didn’t have to make it a guessing game.
1:19:12 -- Jamey Johnson has done “This Land is Your Land” at the Picnic the last few years and it has always been great. Not sure why he picked this one.
1:22:14 -- The Picnic had been short on saxophones up until now.
1:24:07 -- Not only did we not get to see Margo on the Fourth, but that meant we didn’t get the band introduction either. Glad that we added her back on the replay -- we needed a Leon Russell tribute.
1:26:34 -- OK, at least three of those crumpled beer cans on the floor are Lone Star cans. What is sponsor Budweiser going to say?
1:27:41 -- Lukas is just better than us at everything. Hell, even his Zoom meetings are awesome.
1:33:10 -- I just want to know what Sheryl Crow has on her ceiling. Waiting for the Willie Picnic Cribs show on CMT.
1:36:46 -- The McCrary Sisters have just tripled the number of women featured in the Picnic finale.
1:40:11 -- Willie mentions Dripping Springs twice in this show. I can’t imagine that we’d return to a Picnic in a field at this point, but with Willie, you never know.
1:41:53 -- It’s not bad to see Micah back on drums. It’s just weird not to see an English back there.
1:45:00 -- Willie sounds good. The time off the road has agreed with him, apparently.
1:52:00 -- I wonder who is keeping track of Ol’ Dillo while Willie is off the road.
1:58:16 -- The video and the sound have gotten off track on this viewing for me and now this is like a bad kung-fu movie.
1:59:30 -- I never was as enthralled with “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die” as everyone else in the world seemed to be, but I have enjoyed it being part of the gospel sing-along at the close of the Picnics these last few years.
2:02:52 -- End credits show Willie was supposed to play “I’ll Fly Away” and “I Saw the Light” which traditionally close the Picnic. I guess he didn’t have time, but we’ll close here.