It’s an occasion any time two of the greatest living songwriters share a stage. When that stage happens to be one of the most beautiful venues in the country, there’s bound to be a little magic. Such was the case Saturday, when Willie Nelson’s always-stacked Outlaw Music Festival tour pulled into the Gorge Amphitheatre.
The current run pairs the country icon with one of the few artists he can legitimately call a peer in Bob Dylan, uniting the two friends and kindred-spirit songsmiths with vastly different personas. We were one Joni Mitchell away from unlocking some sort of cosmic portal over the Columbia River, but there was more than enough supernatural alchemy in the air when Dylan took the stage as the scorching Central Washington sun was mercifully setting. There’s a never-know-what-you’re-gonna-get factor with a Dylan show, which has only added to the mystic and mercurial folk legend’s lore.
Last night was a good night; the 83-year-old sounded even stronger than he did two years ago during his savory Paramount Theatre date on his Rough and Rowdy Ways tour, and he pulled out a handful of heyday crowd-pleasers — something the uncompromising artist isn’t always wont to do. A tousled “Rainy Day Women #12 and 35” to start the 75-minute set felt like an opening bone tossed to some of the more casual Dylan fans at the festival-esque tour stop, with the recognizable “everybody must get stoned” lyric befitting a night when he was touring with a guy who has his own weed brand. It also served as a nice transition for a good-time crowd that had just spent a blues-rocking hour nostalgically partying with a rougher and rowdier John Mellancamp, who was also on the star-studded bill.
Dylan and his dressed-in-black backing band loosened up themselves a few songs later with a moody “Love Sick” from 1997’s “Time Out of Mind.” The Gorge wind whipped his curly tuft of hair and his note sheets flapped across his piano as he leaned in deeper, hammering the keys with gale-force gusto. His voice clear as can be these days, Dylan sounded downright spunky on the saucy slow-cooker “Early Roman Kings,” a classic blues walk that got spicier as it progressed, joined by Lukas Nelson (one of Willie’s sons) on guitar.
Save for an ill-fated sing-along attempt on a spirited “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall,” the robust crowd (which filled the hillside early for new-school bluegrass ripper Billy Strings, who could probably headline the Gorge himself) seemed awestruck by the folk hero. That was especially true on a stripped-down “Simple Twist of Fate,” when Dylan’s words hung in the still twilight air, interrupted only by piano rumbles and delicate accents from the band, with Lukas Nelson again sitting in for Dylan’s closing run. Closing with another slightly reworked crowd-pleaser, “Ballad of a Thin Man” was sly, mischievous and smoky, with Dylan shaking up his staggered phrasing to keep the crowd hanging on every line.
For all those classic Dylan treats, some choice covers made for some of the highs. A master interpreter, Dylan treated the Grateful Dead’s “Stella Blue” like a delicate jazz standard for one of the biggest stunners of the night. Early on, Dylan delivered a fanciful rendition of “Mr.
Blue,” the late ‘50s chart-topper by Washington doo-wop group The Fleetwoods that’s been a set list staple for Dylan this summer. It wasn’t the only nod to home state music stars last night. Roughly halfway through Nelson’s hourlong closing set, the kind-eyed country GOAT chased a heart-piercing “Always on My Mind” with a cowboy-tender take on Pearl Jam favorite “Just Breathe.
” Flanked by his sons, Lukas and Micah, Willie let Lukas take the lead, his softer, wearier voice providing a delicately rugged counterpoint to Lukas’ more youthful, gold-fisted might. It made for a sweet father-and-son moment of which Eddie Vedder surely would have approved. They say cowboys don’t cry, unless ole Willie comes on the jukebox.
But beyond that mid-set couplet, the Willie Nelson & Family band — with the three Nelson men joined up front by guitarist/vocalist Waylon Payne — were less interested in the tearjerkers than they were kicking out good-time country classics like “Good Hearted Woman.” “Here’s a song me and Waylon Jennings wrote one time,” Nelson said matter of factly before the midtempo kicker picked the mood back up. With Nelson’s disarming plainspokeness (in song and on stage) and his sons by his side, it often felt like being privy to a Nelson family house jam, intimate and without much pomp or pretense, despite the expansive environs of the Gorge.
By nature, the Willie Nelson experience is a more jubilant, participatory affair than a Bob Dylan show, where suspense and surprise are part of the allure. While Dylan’s become an almost mythical recluse emerging as his restless creative mood dictates, the kind-eyed Nelson, 91, comes off as an approachable country legend you could eat an edible with. A rousing group-vocal “Whiskey River” had set the tone right out of the gate, as Nelson’s trusty opener woke the crowd up like a shot of Jack.
The sidewinding “Still is Still Moving to Me” was another early highlight, ratcheting up the energy with quadruple guitar brawn and Nelson’s vocals standing tall. After all these years, Nelson’s voice still fits his songs like your favorite old pair of sturdy leather boots — structurally sound, the color softened a bit by time. The crowd threw its collective voice into the mix on “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys,” another Willie and Waylon favorite that’s soundtracked more than a few beer-sloshing sing-alongs over the years.
Two songs later, the crowd reignited for the road dog rambler “On the Road Again.” “The life I love is making music with my friends, and I can’t wait to get on the road again,” Nelson sang to the dark sky and thousands of fans who were tickled to bask in his presence for an evening. May he never stop.
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