YOU'D be a hard-hearted crittur to complain about not receiving value for money at a Willie Nelson show. Saturday night's doozie clocked in at an overly-generous two hours and 26 minutes. Additionally, Willie rewarded his followers with extra bangs-per-buck by expertly, with just one finger, frisbee'ing pre-knotted samples of his trademark red bandanas into the stalls every so often.
Of course, what Willie provided that mattered the most on Saturday were all the timeless singalong classics he's written: Crazy, Funny How Time Slips Away, Good-Hearted Woman, Night Life.
He knows a winning song when it's been written by someone else, too, as was demonstrated by his version of Always On My Mind.
Willie's halting delivery of this wistful, apologetic declaration of love underlined his status as the King of the Understated Vocal. Just as Willie's masterly drummer, Paul English, proved adept throughout at coaxing a range of subtle rhythms from a kit consisting of one bare snare drum - often employing only one hand, too - so Willie's voice on Always On My Mind was living testimony to the old adage that less is more.
For whatever song Willie sang, he did so with a dry and plaintive plain-ness which paradoxically always served to enhance a tune's emotional import. At the same time, he was always willing to chart fresh paths for each song by vamping off on new melodic byways.
Up whisky rivers Willie led us, past outlaw run-ins in Laredo, and doomed Wild West vistas where women are forever a-reachin' down to pluck smokin' guns from their men-folks' hands. Quietly epic, Mr Nelson, and much appreciated.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article