Late in the run of Willie Nelson Fourth of July Picnics at
the Circuit of the Americas racetrack amphitheater, I noticed that Willie’s son
Lukas had stationed himself to the right of his father and younger son Micah
was standing to the right of longtime Family drummer Paul English as they
performed.
The next generation, safeguarding the now-unsteady old outlaws. For a longtime fan, to recognize it was to feel a bit unsteady yourself, at least for a minute.
At this year’s Picnic, the second at the Q2 Stadium in North Austin, Paul English was gone, like so many other Picnic performers before and since.
But the Picnic marches on. Willie does not care about your expectations, fitting finales or big round numbers. If you expect the 50th Picnic to be the last, don’t be surprised if a 91-year-old Willie keeps going next year, pushing for 51. He’ll do it if he can.
This year, Willie’s right-hand man was Micah, and the duo made a strong pair. At 90 years old, Willie, who now sits down for his hour-long set, can no longer carry a whole show without a moment of rest now and then.
Micah was there to lean on, contributing three songs over the course of the Willie show. “Die When I’m High” was the first, answering the question of why Micah didn’t play his most Picnic-friendly song during his opening set.
I’m not qualified to judge Micah’s other, somewhat experimental music – my area of expertise is narrow enough to fall right over. But with “Die When I’m High,” Micah swerved into my lane so confidently, you’d think he had three names and a record of hits and arrests from the 1970s.
Micah and Willie sang it beautifully together, likely the highlight of this year’s Picnic.
I’ve only seen Willie a couple of times since COVID, when he was still working out his new, shortened show. I’ve seen (and loved) the same Willie set at Picnics, give or take a few recent songs, for the last 15 years, at least. The new approach, though necessitated by age, was an engaging departure.
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This is the part where we would talk about Tyler Childers – who was in the ringer spot ahead of Willie, actually playing a longer set at an hour and 15 minutes. But Tyler was no surprise. Fans everywhere across the stadium were wearing hats and T-shirts fixed with his name and he sure as hell gave them what they wanted.
As Tyler wrapped up his set, a surprising and sustained roar of appreciation came from the whole stadium. As someone who had often enjoyed seeing Ray Price play that slot at the Picnic, Tyler just wasn’t for me, but, damn, most of the crowd loved him.
Instead, I’ll argue the pre-Willie highlight was Dwight Yoakam.
If you had told me before the show that Dwight would cover a Buck Owens song, I wouldn’t have blinked. If you said he’d do some Merle Haggard songs, yeah, that makes sense. If you had told me Dwight Yoakam was going to sing Ray Wylie Hubbard’s “Redneck Mother,” I’d have probably fallen over.
I have no idea what was behind that inspired cover. Did Dwight – who performed at the Farm Aid II / 1986 Picnic – even know that Ray Wylie was a long-time Picnic performer and “Redneck Mother” has been a Picnic sing-along for decades? Or did he just think it would be cool?
He scored a bullseye either way. Dwight sang the whole song for all it was worth. We all sang along. Dwight and his band were all joy and fun, something harder to find in the very serious younger artists.
For years, one of the highlights of the Picnics has been Willie bringing in an older artist who isn’t usually associated with the Picnic. For the Tyler Childers crowd, I guess Dwight counts – although at 66 he still seems young.
Between the Haggard covers, “Redneck Mother” and a bunch of his greatest hits, Dwight was the most dynamic performer, taking the Picnic back to the old days for just an hour in the evening. The people in the floor seats were dancing in the aisles.
If Willie hadn’t had his name on the show for 50 years, it might have been Dwight’s.
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I missed last year’s Picnic due to COVID, so this was my first look at the soccer stadium. It’s definitely a nice place – the concourse was shaded and large fans made it actually feel pleasant during the heat of the day. There were two air-conditioned bars for the public to duck in (if they weren’t full) and plenty of restrooms, as well as places to refill your water bottle – if you didn’t want to pay $6 a bottle.
Let’s talk prices for a minute. That kind of markup for a bottle of water during a Fourth of July Picnic is just as irresponsible as it has always been. The competition between vendors did keep the food prices somewhat grounded to reality. But damn, the beer prices.
Prices started at $13.95 for a pint of beer – something that discouraged drunkenness among the proletariat.
Some folks were stubborn though.
I was proud of the floor seats I had secured. The very back row of section A3, two seats on the aisle for me and my 16-year-old son. We could come and go with ease and had nobody behind us, save for a security guard.
Or, during Willie’s set, about a half-dozen security guards, each arguing with drunks who didn’t have the right ticket or refused to pour their beer into a cup – all of this happening in my left ear as I tried to focus on Willie.
The floor seats were unfortunate. Line after line of 30 cheap folding chairs, all zip-tied together for maximum closeness. This led to strangers sitting side-by-side, close enough to be engaged. It’s no wonder that some chose to sit on the plastic-covered pitch, farther away from the action, but with a little more Picnic feel.
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When the Picnic had Leon Russell, Merle Haggard and Billy Joe Shaver on the lineup, Asleep at the Wheel was not, I admit, my favorite band. But when Ray Benson is the only old Willie friend you got, you gotta dance with who’s there.
Asleep at the Wheel never sounded so good, at least to my ears. We Boogied Back to Texas. We rode in that Hot Rod Lincoln. We traveled Route 66, heard a little Bob Wills – everything you expect from the Wheel.
Familiarity goes a long way at a live show. Faced with an act we hadn’t heard before – Shane Smith and the Saints – we watched the whole show and pretty much didn’t understand a word. When the band likes to turn it up and jam, those who don’t know the songs are at a disadvantage.
I asked my son what he thought of them. “They were loud,” he said.
The definite disadvantage of having only 8 artists at the Picnic instead of the traditional 20+ is that if you’re not interested in a set … boy it goes on forever. But then, this wasn’t a traditional Picnic crowd. When the emcee asked if it was “your first Picnic,” there was a lot of cheering from the floor seats.
Folks like me had to make do with memories most of the day. There to help that was a slide show of past Picnic performers between sets and before the show. There’s Ray Price! Hey, Johnny Bush! Look, Ben Dorcy! Produced by longtime Willie superfan and photographer Janis Tillerson, the pictures were a poignant reminder of what’s gone.
Walking back to my seats after getting one of those $14 beers between sets, the house music was playing the Grateful Dead’s “Trucking.”
“What a long, strange trip it’s been,” Jerry Garcia sang.
Yeah. Hell of a trip.
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Onstage, Willie is wearing that hideous lime-green Austin FC soccer jersey. This year, instead of “420” it says “50.”
At 90, it’s hard to read Willie’s emotions. Is he happy? Is it a difficult night? Is he tired? As he opens with “Whiskey River” and plays standards such as “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys,” “Good-Hearted Woman” and “Always on My Mind,” it’s tough to tell what he’s feeling.
But there are clues. When he pauses to let Micah sing “Everything is Bullshit,” Willie joins in the chorus, jokingly warbling along “Bullllllshiiiiiiit.”
Long known for his sense of humor – he wrote a memoir packed with dirty jokes – Willie hasn’t often shown that side on stage. Not so tonight.
Willie ends the show, as always, with the gospel singalong, bringing out the other Picnic artists to join him. And then pulls out one more: Mac Davis’ 1980 “It’s Hard to be Humble.”
“To know me is to love me / I must be a hell of a man / Oh Lord It's hard to be humble, / But I'm doing the best that I can.”
Picnic done, Willie waves to the crowd a few more times and exits to the left, the “50” on his jersey fading into the dark beyond the spotlight.