Charlie Zoller
Blog 2
Willie Nelson’s Live Performances
Monday, October 29, 2012
Country Music and Authenticity
Willie Nelson: True Country Artist
Willie
Nelson enters the stage at the Grand Ole Opry and the entire crowd just erupts,
cheering for him. He comes out and within about 20 seconds he starts playing
“on the road again.” Then after the first verse he tells the crowd “Everybody
sing” and the crowd jumps in somewhat. The song is very short, he does not play
the whole song, and his one of his players in his band finish out the song on
the harmonica, and after the song he talks to the audience, and takes bow and
gets applauded. Even though he is in his sixties in this video he still has a
ton of energy and spunk to his routine. He has always had a lot of energy, and
he gives a ton of energy to all his live performances, also he is still touring
today in his 80’s which is quite remarkable.
The crowd that he attracted was mostly older Caucasian
people. I saw much more males than females as well. To see Willie Nelson today, the average ticket price is around anywhere from 100$ to 300$ depending all on the venue, and where you would be seated.
When he performs live he really emphasizes the chorus part
of “On the road again.” The rest of the lyrics he sings pretty regularly, but
when he sings On the road again - Just can't wait to get 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. On the road again, Goin' places that I've never been. Seein' things that
I may never see again” He really emphasizes it, and sings it louder than the
rest of the song.
Besides
what happens during the song, everything is very positive, and there are no bad
aspects. While reading the comments of the concert on video I noticed that
every comment is very positive, and there is no negative energy at all. Every
comment either says something like god bless Willie Nelson or “One of the
greatest country artists ever.” Every comment praises him. If you look at any
other youtube video there are always a bunch of comments saying satiric stuff
like that the artist is fake or not as good as he or should be. Another song that Willie Nelson performed very well was "Whiskey River" live at Billy Bob's Texas.
In this video, Willie Nelson takes most of the song easy in this one because he is aging and doesn't have as much energy as before. But per usual he rocks the crowd, and gets everyone into it. Also, it is quite hard to find a Willie Nelson for a concert coming up soon without paying a huge price for a ticket. To get a ticket one would have to pay in advance for a ticket 7 to 10 months away, because most of his concerts sell out early on.
I thought that starting out describing his earlier career and comparing it to his current one was a good idea. You really described how he interacted with the audience in the first video really well, but you didn’t for the second video. The analysis of the second video wasn’t really present at all. You didn’t describe the persona that he is trying to portray as well, so I was wondering what persona he is trying to portray. I found it interesting that you have to get tickets so far in advance to see him, and that they were so expensive. You only touched on what type of audience that Willie Nelson attracts. I also liked that you looked through the comments of his fans to see what they had to say about him. You were also missing your works cited section.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting the way you explained Nelson’s energy recently compared to his performances before such as at the Grand Ole Opry and I do agree with you that it is easy to tell that he was much more interactive with the audience when he was a bit younger. I agree with you that Nelson’s performances are positive and upbeat and the fans recognize this in their comments as well as their reaction at the show. I was not aware of how difficult it is to get a ticket to a Willie Nelson concert, though, and that you have to buy tickets so far in advance. I thought you did a really good job of analyzing the first live performance and capturing what it is like to be at one of his concerts. I also thought it was interesting that we chose one different song to display the atmosphere of his live performances but we still expressed similar conclusions of Nelson as a live performer. Also we both chose “Whiskey River” as one of the live videos but used performances from completely different times in Nelson’s career. My only criticism is that I had hoped to read a similar summary of your second live video as you did with the first one and possibly more about Willie Nelson’s reputation and persona as an artist and performer.
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