Willie's Tent

On the Outlaw Festival tour

The third-most exciting thing I’ve seen this year is Sheryl Crow getting an arena full of older people up on their feet, dancing to “All I Wanna Do.”

The second-most exciting thing is Bob Dylan emerging from behind a baby grand piano, halfway through a sixty-minute set in balmy Maine mist, revealing the black rain slicker he’s been wearing, with the hood up. It was not raining.

The first-most exciting thing I’ve seen all year, maybe all decade and up there in all life, is the American flag unfurling behind Willie Nelson when his band kicks in on “Whiskey River,” the first moment of his set, barnstorming.

The “gospels” at the end of Willie’s show: “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” and “I’ll Fly Away.” | Photo by Brendan Garvey

Waxahatchee is on the Outlaw Festival tour supporting these giants. We’re “on tour with Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan” and we’re not. We’re close and we’re far. They’re human and they’re alien. They’re hard at work, just like anyone, and they’re guarded royalty, untouchable. All of it as it should be. Katie’s talent and effort have put us in their midst and we’re savoring every moment.

Bob has expanded and swirled my brain this month and given me chills. Sheryl has been an absolute sweetheart to us. But this post is all about Willie.

His band is called Willie Nelson & Family for a reason. Everyone is family. Billy English, longtime late drummer Paul’s brother. Waylon Payne, longtime late guitarist Jody’s son. Mickey Raphael, on harmonica with Willie since 1973 (age twenty-one). Bobbie, Willie’s sister, played piano in the band just as long, until she died in 2022. His sons Lukas and Micah play with him sometimes. Read this story about Paul, Willie’s devil, to get an idea of the depths of their bonds (thanks for the rec, Peyton). Crazy and ill-advised at times. Skin-deep? No, marrow-deep.

Sound and light crew, too, even bus drivers and security, all been together for decades if not half a century. You could guess they’re there for the money, but I’d guess they’re there because they’re family and they’re family because they’re there.

Tour dog Petey is in the Family.

I was so struck the first night I walked in the crowd during Willie’s show and felt everybody’s joy. Beyond a typical-good crowd or a pop star’s horde, it was the joy of, yeah, family. The entire amphitheater was standing, hooting and hollering, parents with kids, aunts, uncles, grandparents, beers in hand, hats off, joining Willie in the music. I think he’s been cultivating that feeling for fifty-plus years, since his first Fourth of July picnic. He makes you feel invited. And it’s a more powerful (or I should say healthy) feeling than idolatry or half-interested “entertain me”-ism.

Not to mention, it means so much to me when our country is defined by polar purism and a chasm re-widening on old white supremacist lines. When Billy English starts chugging on the snare drum (only—no other drums), and the flag drops, everyone is included. And that’s a warm shock, like being dumped on by bathwater.

It’s not that Willie has sat on the fence all these years, preserving a vague enough image to be loved by anyone. He’s taken stands for civil rights for gay people and immigrants, debt relief, bio-fuels, against the Iraq War and for public media. The outlaw image is inherently anti-authoritarian.

But everyone and anyone still listens to him, and I don’t think it’s because they ignore his principles. (It’s not all about “the way he fills out his skin-tight blue jeans”—the set closer.) I think he takes a stand… and he says, If you’re willing to play nice, if you’ll put down your weapon tonight, we can sing together. Will you help me make it through the night?

That doesn’t distract from our desperate political needs, it fuels us up for them. It might even soften up your enemy, the one standing next to you with a Budweiser in his hand. At the very least, we don’t seem to make anybody safer by leaning into the great divide.

And that flag. It’s a flag that means death. And it’s a flag that symbolizes your rights. Until our distant descendants draw a new one without so much blood on it, we have to tug it toward the latter meaning. Associations are powerful: we stand for justice for all, and that flag is on my stage. My woven guitar strap. Our definition, our choice.

Anyone not willing to come along, insistent upon shitting in the tent, cheering on body-snatching and deportations, raising prices and lowering wages, pointing the finger at their own victims, pitting us against each other… If those stories about the Red-Headed Stranger and The Devil are to be believed, Willie doesn’t have a problem kicking a jackass out of the bar. Dry out. No power for you.