Review: Willie Nelson in fine form at 90 as Outlaw Music Festival returns to the Mann Center
Willie Nelson turned 90 this year, and he's on the road again with his Outlaw Music Festival. On Saturday, he played at the Mann Center with Avett Brothers, Marcus King, Kathleen Edwards, and others.
The revered nonagenarian songwriter was frisky and undiminished at the Fairmount Park fest, with the Avett Brothers, Marcus King and Kathleen Edwards also on the bill.
by Dan DeLuca | The Philadelphia Inquirer
It goes without saying: Willie Nelson’s continued existence is a cause for celebration.
So when the timeless Texas songwriter became a nonagenarian in April, he was feted in style. A two-day, all-star concert at the Hollywood Bowl has been made into a movie called Long Story Short: Willie Nelson 90. It’s headed for digital release in the fall.
And now, the birthday show is on the road (again). On Saturday, the country-flavored Outlaw Music Festival caravan set up at the Mann Center, back in its comfortable Fairmount Park confines after spending 2022 in Camden at the Freedom Mortgage Pavilion.
Before the beloved headliner strode on stage with no introduction at 9:45 p.m. — taking a seat in front of an American flag backdrop with his trusty guitar, Trigger, in hand — nearly seven hours of music had already transpired.
It started with Nelson’s son Micah’s band, Particle Kid, followed by Lubbock, Texas, sextet Flatland Cavalry, Canadian songwriter Kathleen Edwards, South Carolina guitarist Marcus King, and North Carolina folk-rock band Avett Brothers. More on the last three in a minute.
But first, Willie. His hour-long, casually masterful performance began with “Whiskey River” and ended with an all-bands-on-deck finale of two songs that find faith in the hereafter in “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” and “I’ll Fly Away.” For laughs, Nelson — who wore a red bandana and a black T-shirt emblazoned with the word Legalize — followed those with Mac Davis’ “It’s Hard to Be Humble,” in which he amusingly boasted of being “perfect in every way.”
The set was billed as Willie Nelson and Family. Micah, who sat to his right, played guitar and sang lead on three songs. Nelson’s older sister Bobbie, a pianist who toured with him for decades, died in 2021, but her presence lingered.
Of course, when it comes to Willie Nelson, the concept of family extends far beyond blood relatives. Harmonica player Mickey Raphael, who also sat in with the Avetts, has been in the band for 50 years.
The younger bands on the bill all aspire to abide by the Willie ethos of nonconformity, aiming to stay true to their muse rather than follow the slick strictures of the mainstream marketplace. As he put it Saturday in “Write Your Own Songs,” a song he wrote in 1984: “We write what we live and we live what we write: Is that wrong?”