Las Vegas - Willie Nelson

One of the things I had decided I wanted to do here was go to a Willie Nelson concert at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas. No mere cafes in this town, I guess.

I'm not sure why the idea of seeing Willie Nelson perform live captured my imagination the way it did. I wouldn't ever have described myself as a particular fan of his music. Perhaps it's because he's such an iconically American symbol. His show was the best fit for the purpose of my journey. It's also about familiarity, I suppose. Although I was never into Willie Nelson, somehow he osmotically got into me. Here he is singing "Always on my Mind" 25 years ago. I was 4 years old. I know his voice so well without ever having had to seek it out. I know the words to so many of his songs without having made a conscious effort to hear them. Willie Nelson is in the jukebox of my mind, the soundtrack of my life, and now I wanted to see him in the flesh.

I had mentioned this desire to Marcus when I first discovered that the concert and my visit would coincide. He suggested that before I commit to a $52 standing room only ticket he would call his friend Walter, who lives in Las Vegas, and see if he could get me a better deal. It took a few days, but Walter came through in the best possible way. He managed to score us two tickets for free! Walter, you're a Road Trip Angel.

We trotted into the Hard Rock's music venue, appropriately named "The Joint," only slightly late and slightly out of breath. As a side note, it took so long for the show to start that we could have stopped for dinner and dessert and still made it for the first song.

We milled around at the back with the rest of the riff raff in the standing room only section, jockeying for a spot with a good view. Meanwhile the rich people who had actually paid for seats (and every seat was full) trampled back and forth over us to get to the bar.

To keep us from getting impatient and storming the stage there were giant screens mounted on either side of the stage. The screens displayed text messages or pics sent from the mobile (cell) phones of audience members. A special number was posted up on the screens and whatever nonsense people sent to it was writ huge on the LED. There were a lot of "Luv ya Willie!" style messages. There were also a lot of "James loves Linda" type messages. Some were simply incomprehensible. My favourite was a pic of a Willie Nelson lookalike in the audience with the caption "Free Willie."

Finally the house lights went down and the stage lights went up. Willie and the gang came out onto the stage and launched straight into the first song. It was ... awful. Honestly, it sounded absolutely terrible. The sound was appalling, Willie's guitar "Trigger" sounded woefully out of tune, the vocal was way off and the whole experience thoroughly sucked.

We shuffled our feet and looked at each other with embarrassment. There's something rather awkward about watching a big star go down hard, especially one I quite like and who I know probably needs the money. After three or four songs I wondered "Why haven't his handlers crucified the sound guy?"

Strangely, the rest of audience didn't seem to register discomfort. They were cheering and clapping and whooping and singing along. Were they at the same show as us? Was it perhaps my head that was out of tune? No, it's just that these people are the true believers. They just about screamed the roof off when Willie toasted the audience and took a sip from his drink. It didn't matter what he did. It didn't matter that the sound guy appeared not to have shown up for work so the janitor was filling in. The Willie in their head drowned out the one on the stage and the travesty went on to riotous applause.

Then, suddenly and inexplicably, the sound improved. On one song the guitar sounded like an amplified instrument of torture. On the next song it sounded like Trigger has sounded for years. One more song and someone fixed Willie's vocal track. That's when we realised that Willie still has it. The show was good! It was great! The old songs were classics and the new songs were fun.

One song that I hadn't heard before made me laugh out loud. The first verse was:

"You used to laugh at all my jokes although you'd heard them all before
But you don't think I'm funny anymore.
I used to fake a heart attack and fall down on the floor
Even I don't think that's funny anymore."

It got a big laugh and the audience went nuts. Of course, they went nuts for everything. Through it all Willie played on, professional and stoic, but with pleasure. He played to the fans too, tossing bandannas to the audience. He must have put on about 15 of them during the show, worn them for a song or two, then thrown them into the crowd where fans wrestled happily for possession of sweat from the sacred brow.

The show turned out to be so good that we even bought a souvenir bandanna. Having considered leaving a lousy show after only a few painful songs, we were now faced with the prospect of having to sneak out of an awesome show so that we would make it to our next planned activity. We lingered for one song longer than we should have, then another, and another. Finally we simply could not wait any longer and rushed out the door to grab a cab before the mass exodus.

On reflection, I suspect the exodus would not have come. Everyone would have lingered in the hope of getting an autograph. If we didn't have somewhere else to be in five minutes time then I would have done the same thing.