Music review: Willie Nelson concert

By Christa Lawler
Duluth News Tribune

After Willie Nelson had surgery for carpal tunnel a few years ago, his doctor told him to go home and shut up, the gray-braided country music icon told his audience Saturday night at Bayfront Festival Park.
“So I wrote this song,” he said, leading into “Superman” – a song about trying to do more than he can and learning that he ain’t Clark Kent’s alter ego.
The old man didn’t make much of a case for himself. Nelson ripped through about 30 songs – one bleeding immediately into another with rarely any chatter – during a 90-minute set that ended with him calling out “Thank y’all” and leaving at the back of the stage.

   OK, so maybe Superman would have had an encore. How about Superman-ish? After all, on Friday night the 78-year-old was on the stage at We Fest near Detroit Lakes, Minn., and he’s got five more shows this week.
Nelson took the stage unceremoniously. All of a sudden he was just there, a short figure dressed in a black cowboy hat, black shirt and black pants with a red, white and blue guitar strap. His signature hair braided to just below his collarbone, shorter than in years past. Recordings of his songs had been playing in the park before the show started, and kicked in again afterward.
He stayed true to the Willie-isms that fans have come to expect with his shows: Opening with “Whiskey River,” a Texas flag as his backdrop, tossing red bandanas into the crowd and trying on the cowboy hats that were tossed on stage. He pointed at the audience and he pointed at the sky and occasionally broke out into a big grin.
Nelson took plenty of solos on his guitar, ripping away at it like there was something hidden inside.
He filled the middle of the set with a string of hits: “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys,” “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground,” “On the Road Again” and “Always on My Mind.”
Nelson didn’t seem to have a target demographic among the estimated 7,000 people who were at the show. There were baby boomers on up and Gen X on down.
There were glowing hula hoops and children dancing. There were barefoot women in long skirts spinning in the grass and plenty of bandanas knotted around heads. Some fans sat on blankets or chairs while others pushed against white barriers in a pack.
Nelson closed the show with “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” and “I Saw the Light,” which his band continued to play long after he was likely tucked into his tour bus.
Minneapolis band 4onthefloor opened in the early evening, playing about an hourlong set of bluesy music defined by four bass drums.
They were followed by hometown-bred Trampled by Turtles, who finally played a show where no one had to be turned away at the door. The speedgrass band’s past two concerts here have sold out.
Fans at stage left were distracted midway through the hourlong set when a decidedly Willie-looking tour bus, airbrushed with a cowboy theme, rolled into the parking lot behind the stage.
After closing with  fan-favorite “Wait so Long,” Trampled by Turtles answered the call for an encore with “Codeine.”

This review ran in the August 11, 2011 edition of the Duluth News Tribune.