He’s on the road again.
Nearly two weeks after bowing out of his Outlaw Music Festival Tour with an undisclosed illness for what turned out to be eight missed shows, Willie Nelson was back on stage making music with his friends (and Family), just in time for his annual Fourth of July Picnic.
“How’s it going?” the singer, who celebrated his ninety-first birthday in April, said over a joyous din of high-pitched cheers from fans at the Freedom Mortgage Pavilion in Camden, New Jersey, Thursday night. With Trigger hanging from the familiar red, white, and blue guitar strap, Willie sat down on a padded stool and got down to business: Whiskey River, take my mind. His voice was a bit rough-hewn at the start, his phrasing more deliberate and talky, but the guitar fingers were firing on all cylinders.
A few songs later came a tentatively gorgeous “I Never Cared For You.” It was like watching a baseball pitcher take a few innings to feel things out, getting by on craft and nerve before reminding everyone exactly what makes him an ace.
“Y’all doing all right?” Willie asked the crowd. “Been gone for a while, but it’s good to be back. Real lucky to be here and thank you for coming.” He also thanked everyone for the “fan mail,” in case you wondered whether Willie reads Instagram comments. (He probably also got real mail.)
It had already been, in the words of Robert Plant, a “rip-roaring day” at the pavilion, with sets by Bob Dylan, Plant and Alison Krauss, Maren Morris, Mavis Staples, Celisse, and Bowen Young. When you’re Willie Nelson, this is the caliber of your opening acts, with the picnic basically a value-added tour stop for the Outlaw Music Festival Tour (Staples, Morris, and Bowen Young played only this date).
It was the first Fourth of July Picnic held outside of Texas since 2009, in a location that was meant to be symbolic—just across the Delaware River from where the Declaration of Independence was signed, in Philadelphia—but was still in New Jersey, at a generic outdoor amphitheater. Of course, the event hasn’t been held on a field in Dripping Springs (the very first location) or Luckenbach or even Austin’s Zilker Park for a long time. More recently, it was at the Circuit of Americas from 2015 until 2019, and then spent the last two years at Q2 Stadium, both in the Capital City area.
Willie’s fans are everywhere, though, and people clearly traveled to see him play on Independence Day. Some sported bandanas both in Willie red and in red, white, and blue (the latter were given out at the show), as well as the classic “Shotgun Willie” T-shirts; apparel for his CBD brand, Willie’s Remedy; and vintage souvenirs of past concerts in Pedernales and Fort Worth. The man of the hour wore his “LEGALIZE” shirt.
The Family is as big a part of any Willie Nelson show as the man himself, and they were pleased to have their patriarch back. “My kid over here, Lukas,” the singer said before his son, who’d also been filling in for his father the previous eight nights, scorched—both vocally and on electric guitar—through “Texas Flood.” Father and son also did their cover of Pearl Jam’s “Just Breathe.” Later, during one of the younger Nelson’s guitar solos, the crowd cheered the sight of Willie’s admiring grin as much as the solo itself.
Second guitarist Waylon Payne—Jody’s boy, and a solo artist in his own right—took over for “Help Me Make It Through The Night,” with Lukas handling the first guitar solo and then Willie string-bending Trigger as only he can. And as a band, The Family—drummer Billy English, bassist Kevin Smith, percussionist Anthony LoGerfo, and stalwart harmonica player Mickey Raphael—swung and shuffled as hard and true as ever, turning Camden into Luck, Texas, for sixty minutes.
For “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,” Willie gave himself a break by turning it over to the crowd (some of whom, in Philadelphia Eagles gear, might have thought they were singing about the football team). The night also gave us the first-ever performance of the title track from new album The Border, a haunting Rodney Crowell–Allen Shamblin song, featuring Raphael on accordion, that couldn’t be a more appropriate choice on this day in the United States in 2024.
The show ended with “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” in a traditional group-sing with Bowen Young, Morris, and Celisse (but not Staples, Plant, Krauss, or—could you imagine?—Dylan). But before that, there was the humor of “Roll Me Up and Smoke When I Die” and an even more resonant and meta “Still Not Dead.”
“I woke up still not dead again today,” Willie sang. “The news said I was gone, to my dismay. Don’t bury me, I’ve got a show to play.” He’s scheduled to do just that again this weekend in Bethel, New York, and Hershey, Pennsylvania.
