Maybe that title should’ve been the lead for this article but oh well, it works in either scenario.
The week of my birthday, Willie Nelson and promotion company Blackbird Presents announced the lineup for Willie’s now annual Outlaw Music Festival. The lineup for the full tour strikes a solid balance of fresh faces like Zach Bryan and Billy Strings, people already established in the industry like Nathaniel Rateliff and The Avett Brothers, and certified legends like ZZ Top, Chris Stapleton, and of course, Willie Nelson & Family.
The overall lineup gets broken down into smaller shows for each city and when the lineup for Dallas was booked, I think they sat around a table and said, “Okay, what’s the easiest way to get Andrew to buy a ticket.” For the Dallas date, the featured performers were Willie, Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, Brothers Osborne, Charley Crockett, Steve Earle & the Dukes, and Allison Russell. It was the easiest pick for a birthday present I could’ve thought up.
Not just because I want to see Willie, I love Charley Crockett and I’ve been trying to see Brothers Osborne ever since they broke into the mainstream pretty much. The biggest reason for me personally though was the inclusion of Isbell. Anyone who knows me will tell you I am a huge fan of Isbell. I think Southeastern is one of the best country albums of the last 20 years and he hasn’t missed since then in my opinion. He just keeps putting out awesome albums and writing incredible songs. Needless to say, I had been looking forward to this show for a while.
My mom and I got to our seats a little late due to a combination of Dallas traffic and a long line for Fuzzy’s Tacos. Steve Earle was finishing up as we walked in and I got to hear Copperhead Road from the taco line which bummed me out but oh well. We took our seats as he played his last two songs and said goodbye. The first set we got to see in full after a quick changeover was Charley Crockett who saw a boost in popularity during the pandemic with the release of his album, Welcome to Hard Times. If you’ve never listened to Charley, the easiest way I can describe him is he sounds like a record that got lost in a jukebox in the 1950s that just got recovered. He has a very deep and retro voice and makes songs that, instrumentally, wouldn’t sound too out of place on a George Jones or Merle Haggard record.
I got to see Charley at last years ACL Fest and loved how much of a showman he was. This show was equally as impressive. For 50 minutes, Charley and his band The Blue Drifters played a tight setlist that spanned his entire catalogue and included covers from T-Bone Walker and his late friend James Hand. On stage, Crockett just oozes swagger between his amazing voice and the sweet dance moves he can bust out. He’s always a great time and I look forward to hopefully seeing him again soon.
After Charley, Brothers Osborne took the stage which is about as big of a sonic and stylist shift as the fest could take. While they’re still country, Brothers Osborne are infinitely more mainstream and pop oriented than Charley. That’s not a knock on them though, I loved their set. I didn’t realize until this set just how well their music could translate live, it also helps that the band of full of fantastic musicians. John Osborne is a fantastic guitar player and led an extended nearly 6 minute rendition of their song Stay a Little Longer. The band also played a 10 minute version of their closing song, It Ain’t My Fault with a fantastic organ solo in the middle of it. I also recognized songs that I didn’t even know were the bands like Shoot Me Straight and Rum.
Lead singer TJ Osbourne is a fantastic frontman but also took time to address the crowd with one of the funniest things anyone on stage said all night before the song, Younger Me. He mentioned that for those who didn’t know him “Don’t let my sparkly cowboy hat fool you, I am a gay man.” The performance was one of the more heartfelt moments of the night and was met by a standing ovation at the end before the band transitioned into Dead Man’s Curve, an absolute barnburner that, if it was a person, could knock me out with one punch.
After another changeover, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit took the stage at 8:10 PM sharp as the sun started to set. I’ll get my biased statements out of the way first just so you guys don’t have to hear them later. For starters, I think Jason might be the best guitar player I’ve ever seen play live. The solos he played on Overseas, Honeysuckle Blue (from his Georgia Blue covers album), and Decoration Day (a song he wrote and performed for Drive By Truckers) cemented that for me, especially the Honeysuckle Blue solo, I need the tabs for it ASAP.
While the rock songs he played were great, his slower and acoustic based material hit even harder than I anticipated it would. Last of My Kind with an extended guitar solo from lead guitarist Sadler Vaden was incredible. I’ll remind y’all that I’m a Southeastern stan at heart which is why I think his two of his best performances of the evening were the songs Traveling Alone and Cover Me Up. After the performance I saw on Saturday, I don’t want to hear anyone tell me Morgan Wallen’s version of Cover Me Up is superior because it’s wrong and dumb to say, especially since Jason actually means what he’s singing on the song.
Now to my impartial comments on his set. Isbell and his band are solid musicians and weaved through a 75 minute set spanning his entire career. He played his solo material, his 400 Unit material, even the songs Outfit and Decoration Day from his aforementioned days in the Drive By Truckers. His opening one-two punch of 24 Frames into Hope The High Road was a great start to the show. Jason also has a great dry sense of humor on stage. After the song Alabama Pines, Jason told the crowd that as he sang, there was a little spider crawling on his microphone that he ended up giving a little kiss to. He said that his wife, Lubbock native Amanda Shires, doesn’t mind spiders but is deathly afraid of snakes which Isbell followed by saying, “I was raised in an Alabaman Pentecostal family so I have no issue with snakes.” While I don’t know when it’ll be, I cannot wait to see Isbell again. Hopefully my second round is sooner rather than later.
Finally, to end the night, Willie Nelson performed a tight, hour long set that was just hit after hit after hit. I was originally nervous going into this show as I had had a friend who saw him in New Braunfels and told me, “All he did was talk and he had the crowd sing everything.” My only guess is maybe the heat got to Willie? Whatever the case, Willie’s set Saturday night was incredible. The fact that he’s still performing at 89 years old is remarkable in itself, combine that with the fact that he still sounds fantastic and could still smoke me in a guitar battle. I genuinely could not stop smiling for his whole hour both from how fun the show was and just because he was so happy and charismatic on stage. If I get to be his age, I hope I’m half as charismatic as he is now.
Willie’s set opened the same way he’s opened every set for a very long time. He came on stage, grabbed his guitar, sat down, and immediately launched into Whiskey River as a Texan flag unfolded behind him. I think the easiest way to describe Willie’s set is by using a line John Mayer was using during shows on his recent Sob Rock Tour. He didn’t play everything I would’ve loved to hear but I loved everything he played. Early set highlights included classics like Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys and a song that everyone is born knowing the words to, On The Road Again. He and his son Micah traded stories and played a song together about how if Willie should die while he’s high, he’ll either be halfway to heaven or he’ll have a really long way to fall.
The show moved at an extremely quick pace and it felt that the show was over right after it barely began. I can’t blame Willie for playing a quick set given his age but I wish he could’ve played a little longer. The final run of the show was fantastic setlist wise. It kicked off with Good Hearted Woman before Willie played a gospel medley of Will the Circle Be Unbroken and I’ll Fly Away. For those songs he brought out everyone who had performed that evening to sing along. It was really awesome to see everyone on stage together, even if it was for a short period of time.
Willie’s show ended with him covering Mac Davis’s It’s Hard to Be Humble which was a great way to get one last smile out of me. As he walked off stage, Willie threw his hat into the crowd along with a handful of bandanas and the bandana on his head. He walked from end to end of the stage one last time and then he walked off stage.
On the way out it hit me that…that might be the only time I get to see Willie. I don’t see him touring rigorously at this age and this summer run might be all he does each year in the near future. If it is the only time I get to see him then I’m happy that I got to cross him off my bucket list and I’m happy that I had such a great time.
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