"Willie Nelson, Ladies and Gentlemen!"

I’d nearly forgotten that we had tickets to a Willie Nelson concert last night. Actually I did not forget, but had been dreading it for quite some time – not the listening to Willie, although at times it is nearly more than I can handle. It was the actual GOING to the concert, dealing with the crowd, and not knowing exactly where it was or what to expect when we arrived.

We survived the concert, but more importantly we survived 'Concrete Street', the outdoor venue where the concert was held. We didn’t get towed away, only had to walk a mile (on Roger’s bad knee, that was fun…both knees were hurting by the time we arrived at Concrete Street), and we only nearly got pitched in jail once…no, make that twice.

We had to stand in line to get frisked at the gate, stand in line to get a $3 bottle of water (they would not let me keep the bottle cap – I suppose it could be used as a weapon of sorts), stand in line to get to our seats only to be turned away because we’d not stood in line to get a wristband for our reserved seats (jail threat #1), stand in line to actually get our wristbands, stand in line again to get our seats, listen to 3 hours of very loud country rock and two other bands, sit behind a row of boisterous females, (the one in front of me with a large cowboy hat - thank goodness that group left after the first hour of Willie). Then on the way out they tried to take away what was left of our $3 bottle of water and Roger threw a fit (I thought we were going to the brink for certain when he grabbed the bottle back from the woman and said it was his, he’d paid for it and he was taking it with him!)

We made it the additional mile back to the car and found it still parked there – amazing since the tow trucks were cruising the area looking for suckers. Anyway, that is the last time we have to go to Concrete Street. There cannot be anything there again that will be important enough for us to see. It was like a big smelly, smoke-filled, drunken bar.

When Willie Nelson finally did arrive, the music calmed down to Willie style and my ears eventually stopped pulsating, however they are still ringing. The last hour of Willie was very good since many people had left and we could see well…not actually well, but nearly unobstructed. He closed out the show about 4 times before finally leaving, so Roger had a great time from 11:00 p.m. till midnight when the show finally really did end. I only slept through about an hour of the tortuous portions.

Willie Nelson…been there done that. Next time we will just buy the CD.