Bottlecaps

Willie poster deal!

Right now on eBay, they are selling the 1986 Farm Aid collectible poster for only $50. And it's signed by Willie. 

(If you're wondering, the second Farm Aid also doubled as a Fourth of July Picnic. That's why I care.)

In five years of looking, I've never seen this poster for sale. Now they have 10+ and they're selling them for $50 to raise funds for Farm Aid. Hell, if I could, I would buy two, just to have trade bait in case I ever meet another collector.

Anyway, if you ever wanted to collect Willie posters, this is a great place to start. 

(There's also a few other deals on the web. If you want to know, just email me.)

Anyway, I just bought one and I'm really excited about it.

Shit, I might even put this on Facebook.

 

Picnic 2010: Links, photos and video

I've been officially quoted as saying this year's Picnic was the first time I've ever left a Picnic mad at Willie.

And that's true. I'll stand by my statement that the Reflectacles had no business playing that late a slot and that it was disrespectful of Willie to keep concertgoers waiting for 10, 11, 12, 13 hours to see him.

The food shortage was the big deal for others (and having an empty stomach did not help my endurance  as I waited for Willie). And a lot of people were upset by the Backyard's strict policies, which were clear to me on their Web site, but surprised a lot of people.

All in all, though, I thought it had the chance to be a good Picnic. I would do it again next year. But I would do it differently, and I would be hoping the Backyard and Willie do it differently, as well.

The most telling response though, is the complaints on the forum at Willie's own site. The huge Willie fans often seem to think Willie can do no wrong. It's surprising when when they show otherwise.

Here's a link to my newspaper's official blog on the late problems at the Picnic. It includes a link to the original review.

Here's a link to our photos. And a link to Fort Worth's photos.

Here's a link to an Austin blogger who had different expectations than I did. She does provide a different perspective.

Finally, here's some of my photos:

 

The crowd at the Picnic at noon. Would've been nice if it were like this all day.

 

The view from the left side of the stage, where I hung out most of the day.

 

If you squint, that's Ray Wylie Hubbard and David Allan Coe.

 

A sampling of the crowd about 2:30 p.m.

 

If you squint harder still, that's David Allan Coe.

 

Could get a little closer for Johnny Bush.

 

The late-afternoon crowd.

 

Amy Nelson of Folk Uke.

And here's some of my video. You'll have to excuse the quality. I am not a videographer and I have very little practice at it.

That's Coe and Hubbard singing part of "Redneck Mother."

That's Coe singing "The Ride."

Here's a snippet from Folk Uke. This is a representative sample of their music. I'm a big fan.

This one's for Bullworker. Pardon the shaky camera thing at the end. I was trying to pan the camera around the crowd, but couldn't really pull that off.

Here are the Reflectacles. The sound quality on my film isn't fair to them, but you can get the idea that this isn't what we wanted to hear instead of "Whiskey River" or "Good Hearted Woman."

OK.

I think I'm done blogging about the Picnic.

Sometime later this week I'm gonna blog about the worst country songs of all time. If you have a nominee, please e-mail me, or comment.

Willie Nelson Fourth of July Picnic 2010

I did not see Willie Nelson on the Fourth of July.

If I had walked out the gate at midnight — 12 full hours after I arrived — I would have spent a whole Picnic without seeing the man I came to see.

Fortunately, I stuck it out another 15 minutes, time enough to see Willie join the Reflectacles (we'll get to them in a bit) for "This Land is Our Land" and continue on through "Whiskey River" and "On the Road Again" before I was limping back to the car.

It wasn't that I cared about beating traffic. I was just beat. Hands swollen, forearms sunburned, feet aching. At 39 years old (give or take 10 days), I am not too old or too fat to stand in the sun all damn day long and listen to music.

But it's getting harder. Much harder.

I suppose next year — and with the crowd response to this one, I've gotta believe Willie will do it again — next year I could have lost 40 pounds, shown up a couple hours later and I'll make it through the last encore standing in front of the stage. But the odds are more likely that next year I'm gonna find a way to get me some of those nice VIP seats, with the adirondack chairs on a deck with private bar and bathrooms.

In true journalism fashion, let's start with the end:

Ray Price had just finished his set (and he sounded great), and the emcee, Dallas Wayne (who was in a constant state of confusion all day), told us Leon Russell was coming right up. Well, Leon kept us waiting a half-hour, including a full 10 minutes after the stage was set.

After Leon's noisy set, the emcee told us that Willie Nelson was "coming up next." Now, I knew that the Reflectacles (with drummer Micah Nelson, kin to you-know-who) had not yet played, but God and Jeezus it was past 11:30, I was hoping that they'd play alongside Willie.

No such luck. A half-dozen whip-thin hipster kids took the stage and played a half-dozen jangly songs, including a bloated "Man of Constant Sorrow." They had a guy come out on stage and punctuate the end of their first song with some fire breathing. They took time out to throw some reflectacles to the crowd (they look like 3-D glasses, but "make you see rainbows" apparently).

It was the most self-indulgent, self-congratulatory spectacle I've seen in quite some time. Now, if they had, for example, played a late-afternoon set in place of, say, Los Lonely Boys, I would have been in an entirely different frame of mind. But after you've been at the Picnic for 11+ hours and someone says Willie's next … let me just say, it sucks. I know that's Willie's kid. But I'm gonna say it anyway.

Then they brought out Gail Swanson, who played a song with them and, honest to God, introduced it as "This is a song I wrote when my boyfriend forgot my birthday." And proceeded to sing us a coffeehouse ballad.

Some in the crowd were actually heckling her. I won't be so mean. I'll just say there's a time and a place for her talents and this was not it. And if she started to play a second song I was gonna leave right then.

No, the Reflectacles took us through one more snazzy number and, right when the crowd was ready to revolt, brought out dad for "This Land is Our Land," along with Kris Kristofferson, Ray Benson and others. Willie took that right into "Whiskey River."

Whether he ended up playing at all with his band, I don't know. And, really, that kind of bites. But I did what I could do. And I was SOBER. (Really.) Even then, I had a hard time staying between the lines on the drive back home, I was that tired.

It was a different story when I arrived at noon, full of hope for a good Picnic. I parked in a semi-muddy spot and was surprised to see a sizable crowd of several thousand were already there.

On the stage, got me misty-eyed for a moment, was the life-size wood sculpture of Poodie, brought over from Poodie's Hilltop. Looks like Willie's late stage manager isn't going to miss any Picnics after all.

I had missed three acts (and, I hear, the only Willie appearance before 12:05 a.m.) but Pauline Reese did a fine job of opening the Picnic for me. Jody Nix and the Texas Cowboys were the class of the early acts, though, putting a late-night-dancehall effort into a just-after-noon show.

The New Backyard had an unmistakeable Austin stamp: A popsicle stand selling Hibiscus Mint popsicles.

I only tried out two of the food stands. Giovanni's pizza was $5 a slice. Smokey Mo's chopped beef sandwiches were $6. The food stands, however, would prove to be the No. 1 problem of the Picnic logistics. They would be, by late afternoon, overwhelmed. I had a chopped beef sandwich at 3 p.m. At 5 p.m. I stood in line for 30 minutes for a pizza slice and it's a good thing I did. By 7 p.m. the lines were ridiculous. By 9 p.m. just about every place was sold out. 

Freddie Powers got a warm reception from the crowd at 1:20 p.m. And he told the best jokes, to boot. Among them: "Looking at all these pretty girls in front of the stage is like looking at a rose garden." Long pause for the crowd to go "aww." Then the elderly Powers continued: "Every now and then there's a weed or two."

It would be the last time weed was mentioned in a gardening sense that day.

One of the things the Backyard did right was placing large water tanks with multiple spigots around the venue.  All you had to do was buy one bottle of water ($2.50) and you could refill it as many times as you wished. By the end of the day, the water in the "Water Monsters" was a little warm, but it's a lot easier to convince people to stay hydrated when they don't have to pay $2-3 for every bottle of water. It was a very smart move.

Just short of 2 p.m., Kevin Fowler gets the first big roar from the crowd. I've got to say his song "Pound Sign" is one of the stupidest, most inane songs I've ever heard from a Texas artist.

In what was the absolute injustice of the day, Ray Wylie Hubbard went on at 2:15 p.m. and just destroyed a four-song set. "Snake Farm" was great, "Drunken Poet's Dream" even better. "Redneck Mother" brought a shaky David Allan Coe out to the stage and "Wanna Rock 'n' Roll" showcased Lucas Hubbard's guitar work, which is becoming awfully, awfully good. Hubbard should have had Paula Nelson's spot about 8 p.m. For the last several Picnics, Hubbard has been one of the artists best able to gear his set to the Picnic atmosphere. And yet he's been wasted on the dead-afternoon time slots. Damn.

Jamey Johnson owes me about an hour of my life. His stage set-up would be the most drawn-out until it was Leon Russell's turn. And Jamey spent several songs working on his "I'm the baddest thing since David Allan Coe" impression. This included starting to play his big radio hit "In Color," then stopping, saying something I couldn't quite make out and playing George Jones' "Still Doin' Time" instead. Then walking off stage.

Oooh. He refused to do his big song. That's a baaad man.

There were some bad men at the Picnic. Saw several "White Pride" tattoos. Guys in outlaw shirts smoking weed. And, there were also plenty of young folks. Kids I wouldn't have expected to have any interest in the Picnic. And some people brought their kids. Toddlers, infants. Man, I would never, never do it.

Five p.m. at the Picnic is always the most packed it's gonna be. The old folks haven't gone home yet. Most of the late arrivals are all there. And you could feel the strain as a sold-out 7,500 were jammed in, from stage to gate. I went to get another barbecue sandwich and found them to be sold out.

In that 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. stretch, Randy Rogers wasn't that bad. Johnny Bush was pretty good. Folk Uke was profanely charming. Or is that charmingly profane? And Kris Kristofferson was one the Picnic's highlights, playing alone with his guitar and getting a huge response from the Austin crowd.

All in all, the crowd was fantastic. They gave their love to the legends, they hollered for the young folks. Only in Austin would you see such respect.

And then there's Jack Ingram. He played late and talked way too much. His set wasn't all that great, but his moment came when he was playing "Love You." You've heard it? The "Love" is a stand-in for another four-letter word. Yeah, the song goes something like this: "Love you, love this town, love this mother-lovin' truck that keeps breakin' lovin' down."

Anyway, Jack is up there on stage singing this for all he's worth, looking pretty pleased with how tough he is singing this euphemism.

And I'm thinking about David Allan Coe earlier in the day, who got up on stage, and pointed out that he doesn't get a lot of radio air play "because I say MOTHER FUCKER a whole lot!"

He was live on Sirius XM radio when he said it.

Coe's set, by the way, wasn't as entertaining as those metal-hip-hop-hybrids he did at the Fort Worth picnics, and he seemed awfully shaky, but he did not mail it in. He put on a good show. Love him or hate him, he's hard to ignore.

All in all, it was a good Picnic. It was a good experience. By tomorrow I should be recovered enough to start thinking of it even more fondly.

Oh yeah. I took some pictures. And some video. Bad video, but video nonetheless. I hope to post some of that tomorrow.

Willie Picnic Week: Links and fotos

OK, it's been a long week.

Here's a couple of photos from the webs …

 

I know these people. In fact, the woman second from left conducted my wedding ceremony.

(See that guy in white hat and sunglasses in the background at right? That's Larry Gorham. He was Willie's security guy and a Hell's Angel to boot. Interviewed him once.)

 

1974 at College Station.

 

The first Picnic poster and my favorite.

 

My favorite Danny Garrett poster.

 

Another Jim Franklin poster, this one from Luckenbach, 1998.

 

This year's poster and one of my favorites.

Here's the story I wrote for this year's Picnic.

Here's the lengthy chronology I wrote 2 years ago, updated this year.

And here's some pictures. Because I know, I know.

Everybody have a good weekend. I hope to have a good blog on Monday on the Picnic.

Willie Picnic Week: Memories

I started attending the Picnics in 1995 and haven't missed one in Texas yet (though I only attended a small portion of the 2003 Picnic).

Here are some of my favorite memories from the Picnics:

EIGHT: Shooter Jennings makes his Picnic debut at Fort Worth in 2006, a decade after his dad's last Picnic performance. His performance of "4th of July" made my hairs stand on end.

SEVEN: David Allan Coe stuns Fort Worth in 2005. The few times I'd seen the Outlaw before, he put on a tired show of medleys, touching on all his hits. As it turns out, before this Picnic, he'd been working with Pantera and Kid Rock and erupted with a Picnic performance that was half metal, half Kid Rock and all attitude. Love it or hate it, it was one hell of a performance.

SIX: Dwight Yoakum makes a surprise appearance at the 1997 Picnic, jamming with Joe Ely for a couple of Buddy Holly songs. I'd only be mildly interested if Dwight were scheduled to play the Picnic, but having a true surprise guest was really cool. The fact that he meshed so well with Ely and that they picked a perfect pair of songs made it kick ass.

FIVE: Arriving at the Picnic in Southpark Meadows in 2000 and finding the San Angelo music community near the front of the stage. I've gone to Picnics by myself, with one friend, with family, with several friends, but only once with a town.

FOUR: Willie comes out and plays "Pancho and Lefty" with my friends Jimmy Lee Jones and the Texas Hill Country Band in Luckenbach in 1996 or thereabouts. That's the scene, above. It was cool because I knew these guys and how much it meant to them to jam on stage with Willie at a Picnic in Luckenbach.

THREE: Robert Earl Keen's 1995 set in Luckenbach ends with a newly-revved-up version of "The Road Goes on Forever" and the crowd erupts, tossing empty beer cans into the air until the scene resembles some sort of giant redneck popcorn popper. If I close my eyes I can still see Keen ducking a half-empty Shiner can spiraling toward the back of the stage.

TWO: In Fort Worth in 2005, Billy Joe Shaver ends his set on one stage and Bob Dylan starts up on the other. Texas' most celebrated living songwriter to America's most celebrated songwriter. You don't see something like that very often.

ONE: Waylon and Willie in Luckenbach in 1996 tops them all. It had been a blisteringly hot day in a summer of drought, dust everywhere, concert-goers in sad shape. But to see Waylon on his first and only visit to Luckenbach sing "Good Hearted Woman" with Willie … that rocked. It might have been the first time in a dozen years that a performance of "Luckenbach, Texas" in Luckenbach, Texas was not a tourist cliche.

UPDATE: Willie Picnic Week: Locations

UPDATE: Thanks to friend Ginger, who has proved to be handier than me with both a miter saw and Google Maps, here is the interactive map I wanted to make.

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Sigh, this was going to be a good blog. I wanted to make a virtual map with virtual push pins showing where Willie had held his Fourth of July Picnics.

But, you know, your kid breaking his collarbone does come first. I mean, in some cultures anyway.

So, here's a very simple list of where Willie has held every event (July 1-6) that could even vaguely be called a Fourth of July Picnic:

CENTRAL TEXAS

Luckenbach (1994-1999)

Southpark Meadows in South Austin (1984-85, 2000)

Spicewood TX (1979-80, 2003)

Central Austin (1978, 1990)

Bee Cave (1993, 2010)

Dripping Springs (1973)

Manor (1986, also Farm Aid II)

Liberty Hill (1975)

ELSEWHERE IN TEXAS

Fort Worth (2004-2006)

Carl's Corner (1987)

Dallas (1978 Texxas Jam)

College Station (1974)

Gonzales (1976)

San Antonio (2008 in Selma, actually)

Houston (2008)

OUTSIDE TEXAS

Tulsa (1977)

Kansas City (1978)

Meadowlands, N.J. (1983)

Atlanta (1983)

Syracuse, N.Y. (1983)

Washington State (2007)

South Bend, Indiana (2009)

Willie Picnic Week: Performers

We'll keep this one short as events beyond our control have shifted our time frame here at the Thomas household.

What I love about the Willie Nelson Fourth of July Picnic is that it's basically a Mr. Bottlecaps Festival. It's on my favorite holiday, it's very Texas and it features, every year, a large chunk of my favorite artists:

Willie Nelson, Billy Joe Shaver, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Johnny Bush. 

There are also performers who play every year that I have grown to like seeing about once a year:

Ray Price, David Allan Coe, Leon Russell

And to round out the list are the performers who play every year that make a fine time to stand in line for beer:

Geezinslaws, Asleep at the Wheel

This year's lineup also includes: Kris Kristofferson, Jamey Johnson (who I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt until I found out he wrote a song called "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk"), Randy Rodgers, Jack Ingram, Jody Nix (the hunh? performer of the year), Dallas Wayne, Kevin Fowler, Los Lonely Boys, and a good chunk of Willie's musical offspring.

Despite the group of Picnic regulars, irregulars and this year's pretty uniform lineup, the Picnic does have a good habit of featuring country legends, rock royalty and a few surprising acts. Here's my list of some of the artists who have performed at the Picnic over the years:

Jimmy Buffett, the Pointer Sisters, the Stray Cats, Jon Bon Jovi (the Farm Aid II / Picnic in 1986), Bruce Hornsby, the Supersuckers (after the "Twisted Willie" album of hard-rock covers of Willie songs), Billy Bob Thornton, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, the Doobie Brothers, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, BIll Monroe, Floyd Tillman, Ernest Tubb, Dwight Yoakum (in a surprise appearance), John Prine, Tom T. Hall, Doug Sahm, George Jones, Townes Van Zandt, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Hank Snow, Johnny Cash, the Beach Boys, Bonnie Raitt, Steve Ray Vaughan, Jackie King, Roger Miller, Robert Earl Keen, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, the Grateful Dead and the Dead.

You might notice, Parade magazine readers, the lack of any rappers in that list.

Willie Picnic Week: Numbers

Howdy, everyone. I'll be blogging about Willie Nelson's Fourth of July Picnic all week. If this bores the holy bejeezus out of you, well, be forewarned.

The Picnic made Parade magazine on Sunday, with the following description:

"I started it in 1973 to bring together different kinds of people and that's still what we do," Willie says. It's gotten bigger over the years, attracting rock bands, folk singers, rappers and country stars who perform before as many as 20,000 music lovers of all ages, beliefs and races. The event, just like the man himself, is a uniquely, magnificently American phenomenon.

It sounds good, but it pretty much goes downhill after "1973." It has gotten smaller over the years, has never seen a rapper (we'll get to that tomorrow), has seen as many as 80,000 people, but looks to see about 10% (or less) of that number this year, is remarkably white and is much more a Texan phenomenon than American.

I don't know how a national publication comes up with a description like that. I mean the biggest error "gotten bigger over the years" is something that is easily proven wrong with the most basic of research.

Let's crunch some numbers on attendance.

During its first 8 years (1973-1980), the Picnic had an average attendance of 46,000 per year (excluding the indoor, intentionally small pseudo-Picnics at the Austin Opry House in 1978).

That ranges from 25,000 (or, some say, less) in 1979 at Willie's Pedernales Country Club to 80,000+ at Gonzales in 1976. The numbers are fuzzier some years than others, but every year had a July 4 event that attracted at least 20,000 people. This was the Picnic's heyday.

During the 1980s (by which, we mean 1983-1987) the Picnic drew an average of 22,000 per year. But that's a little misleading.

There was an average of 35,000 over 3 East Coast events in 1983, but only 18,000 in 1984 and 12,000 in 1985 (and both those years, the Picnic was in Austin). There was a last surge of 40,000 in 1986 (which also was Farm Aid II) but a drop-off to 8,000 in 1987. Was the Picnic still a big draw? Looks like nobody was quite sure.

During the 1990s (1990, 1993, 1995-2000) the Picnic had an average attendance of 10,500 a year. If you throw out the 1993 show at the Backyard with its capacity crowd of 3,000, it jumps to an average of 11,500 a year.

Let's look at just the numbers for 1995-2000: 13,000, 12,000, 10,000, 12,000, 10,000, 11,000. I think the Picnic definitely was reborn during the 1990s as a smaller-scale event.

During the last decade, it's a little hard to tell. There's not any attendance numbers to be had for 2007 and 2008, which suggests they were pretty small. On the other hand, 2003 had an average over 2 days of 20,000 (thanks in large part to a giant line-up that included the Dead and Neil Young) and the novelty of a 2004 Picnic at the Fort Worth Stockyards drew 20,000.

But if you just add up the numbers we have, you get an average attendance of 15,000 during the 2000s. And that will decline this weekend after the show at the 7,500-capacity new Backyard.

Let's recap. Average attendance:

1970s: 46,000

1980s: 22,000

1990s: 11,500

2000s: 15,000

I don't know what the hell Parade was talking about.

Coming tomorrow: Something much more interesting to other people (performers).

Willie picnic collectors unite!

Actually, here we are.

I've got the mojo for collecting posters for Willie Nelson's Fourth of July Picnics. And I've got it bad.

There's a few problems, though:

Not much money.

No posters to buy.

No community of collectors to discuss my collection with.

That first problem is self-explanatory. The money comes, it goes. Sometimes it works out. 

That second problem is a little tougher. When you have 30-something picnic posters (ranging from cheap knockoffs to historic art), the odds of finding one you don't have are quite poor. The odds decrease even more when you take into account that the remaining posters, the ones that would complete the collection, are ones you don't have because they are hard to find or expensive or, generally, both.

I could expand my collection by taking in ticket stubs or magazine adverts, but that's just inventing a way to spend money. Not that I'm too good for that. 

It's the last problem that is most troublesome. If you collect, say, Elvis memorabilia, there is an expert everywhere you turn. There's no shortage of people to discuss your victories and defeats with. Same for stamp collectors. Or Bob Dylan poster collectors.

But so far I've come up alone in the fine art of collecting Willie picnic posters. The closest I have to a cohort? A former Austin bar owner living in San Angelo that I had a short correspondence with about 2 years ago.

I keep poking around the Internet, looking for an expert. 

The damnedest thing? 

Next time I poke around the Internet, I'll find this blog.

Hello, new Backyard

So, last week I get an email at work telling me that my employee badge will give me two free tickets to the not-quite-opening concert at the new Backyard. 

With a pregnant wife, a limited budget and a wounded head, I wouldn't have been particularly interested except that the venue in Bee Cave, about 30-45 minutes from my house, will host Willie's Fourth of July Picnic this year. 

(That's 59 days if you're reading this on Thursday.)

And so I convinced Shannon to stay in the cool house and nap while the boy and I took off for his first-ever official concert experience.

Now, I'm not one of those yuppies who think dragging a small, diaper-clad child to a large concert for hours on end is a good idea. Hey, if it works for them, I won't argue. But my intentions were to get there in time to see Gary P. Nunn's 3:30 performance, take a look around and come back home. 

After all, the tickets were free.

Not that I was optimistic. Oh, I imagined that I would face heavy traffic getting in. I imagined I would have to pay $10 for parking or something obscene like that. I imagined they would scoff at my claim that I would get free tickets with a newspaper badge. I imagined the boy would fall asleep on the way there and wake up grumpy.

But none of that came to pass. There was no traffic. I mean, to the degree that I kind of felt bad for the new Backyard. It was pretty empty early in the afternoon. And parking was friendly and free. Same goes for the people at the gate. In fact, they refused to scan the ticket for the boy even though their policy on their website clearly states that wee kids don't get in free.

And the boy was happy, at least at first. All that ease got us there a bit early, in time for Suzanna Choffel to actually be the first artist the boy saw live (but I'm not going to count that).

We walked around for awhile. Instead of dry burgers for $6, there was a Torchy's taco stand and a Mandola's Italian food trailer. We bought a bottle of water for $2.50, but I didn't check out the beer prices. We checked out the restrooms, which were still in a state of early construction.

The boy seemed to be slightly put off by the volume of the music, and didn't quite make the connection that the people on the stage were the ones making all the noise, but was more than happy to pick up rocks and play with twigs and look at other people. I think the kid has a little festival in him.

But I was there on a research mission: The Picnic. How would it be at the new Backyard?

First, it struck me that parking was going to be a nightmare. The approach to the hillside parking was like attacking a mountaintop fortress. One way in. One way out. It was easy enough with no other cars coming or going, but stack them about 400 deep and it was going to be a crawl. Or worse.

The venue itself looked pretty enough, the descriptions of it as "rural" are way off the mark. It is on a relatively undeveloped piece of land, but the boom of Bee Cave is right there behind the stage. The Galleria, which chased off the Backyard from its original location, is still there, just not quite as looming.

But what struck me was how small the place was. I've heard that it can hold 7,000 people, but that seems pretty optimistic to me. I'm certainly no expert in venue sizes and crowd counts, but it seems that 7,000 would overwhelm the place, the toilets and — most importantly — the beer stands.

That Willie is having his Picnic there leads me to wonder what kind of crowd they are expecting, whether it will sell out, or whether there's expectations that it won't be quite the draw it has been in the past, especially without another artist like The Dead or Neil Young or Bob Dylan on the bill.

My prediction based on what I saw last weekend was that it will be one hot, crowded, endlessly-stand-in-line for beer or water kind of Fourth of July. I've been there before, but I'm, uh, getting old quick.

Anyway, maybe the Backyard will make some improvements between now and then. The grounds were pretty rough, with exposed rocks everywhere and roots sticking out of the ground. It did have some trees, and my newspaper made a call to remove them, but I hope they don't. We'll need every one.

The boy and had been there 30 minutes when Gary P. Nunn opened with "What I Like About Texas" and I excitedly tried to get him to notice the music, Gary P., the stage or anything besides rocks. I had little success. We sat down for the next two songs — new ones, of course.

By the time Mr. Nunn was closing with "London Homesick Blues," the boy had taken my hand and was not-so-subtly leading me back to the front gate.

We stayed for the song (listening to Gary P. try to get the tiny crowd to do a sing-along on the last verse) and headed for the parking lot. "Leaving already?" they asked me. I kinda felt guilty. 

A guy in the parking lot asked me "How was the beer?"

I pointed at the boy and said I didn't have any.

"But it sure looked damn good," I told him. And it did. 

Bring on the Fourth.