You know how some singers feel like they are burrowing through your ears right into your heart and soul? Everyone has their list, and mine is quite a few names shorter over the past couple of years. Losing Candye Kane and David Bowie really hurt, and it was also sad to say goodbye to Leon Russell, Prince, Merle Haggard, Glen Frey, and many other greats. But there is one star who keeps twinkling away, and that’s ol’ Willie, the Redheaded Stranger himself!
Now, Tallahassee, where I lived almost 30 years, is not famous for its concert venues. But recently, a dying mall renamed itself The Pavilion and rejuvenated itself by building a partially enclosed, open-air area with a stage where big acts could play (without sounding like they were at the bottom of a bucket). We arrived early to the Willie Nelson and Family concert and walked around the little ersatz city street outside. The “food court” is a brand-new building, constructed and decorated to look like a converted early-20th-century warehouse or factory building. So, people drive their cars to the fake city street in the middle of a giant parking lot and pretend they are in an authentic town. This, boys and girls, is what we call, “irony!”
The concert hall was one level, and the chairs were lightweight metal folding chairs (surprisingly comfortable) arranged into sections marked out on the floor in chalk. The stage was surrounded by barricades and security. There was a giant video screen so that you could see if your view was blocked, but our mid-range seats were perfectly fine and we could see and hear everything. The sound crew knew their stuff, so the music sounded clear and true.
Dwight Yoakum opened and he did quite a nice set. I like country music as well as anyone who has lived most of her life in the south, so I enjoyed him. He did Willlie proud, and he no doubt pulled in some of the younger people who were at the concert.
(The Uber driver who picked us up told us sweetly that his parents loved Willie. Oh, well).
I half suspected that Yoakum would be the whole show. I thought that since Willie has had a collapsed lung and carpal tunnel surgery, and was, after all, 82 years old, he would probably come out, cough a couple of times, “sing” some talking-blues song, and shuffle offstage. I was never more delighted to be wrong! He opened up with “Whiskey River,’ and his voice was pretty weak and reedy. But as he worked his way through some other old favorites, he warmed up, and by the time he launched into “Beer for My Horses,” the whole house was singing along on the chorus.
Young and old, we were all laughing by the time he sang his latest song,
I woke up still not dead again today
The internet said I had passed away
Well if I died I wasn’t dead to stay
I woke up still not dead again today.
And in the end, isn’t that the best any of us can say? We are not promised tomorrow. But we can enjoy the bright sparks of life among us like Willie Nelson, who remind us what today is for.
peripateticperi 