Philadelphia Weekly

With the exception of the Internal Revenue Service's Taxpayer of the Year banquet, the last place you'd expect to see Willie Nelson performing is at a high school auditorium. So just what in tarnation was the Red Headed Stranger doing two Thursdays back (April 12) at the Washington Township Center for the Performing Arts (WTCPA), a pristine auditorium located at Washington Township High School in scenic (if strip malls and fast-food joints are your idea of scenery) Sewell, N.J.? Doing what he's been doing for more than five decades: playing for the people and singing like a Dixie hummingbird.

Before we get to Nelson and Family's (the seven-piece band that includes his little sister, Bobbie, on the piano) sure-handed set, here are some vitals on the WTCPA, which hosts primarily WXPN- and WXTU-friendly fare. As a live-music venue, it makes a good high school auditorium. Genuinely friendly folks are stationed behind folding tables in the brightly lit foyer for ticket and refreshment sales, like it's the drama club's presentation of Pippin. The floors aren't sticky (you could probably Moonwalk on 'em) and, Christ, the bathrooms gleam so brightly, you can see your reflection in the urinal cakes. And even though the sound and lighting were superb for Willie's set, you still get the feeling that someone from the AV squad is running follow-spot. That said, the parking is free and secure--big ups to the WTCPA on that one.

Now well into his '60s, Nelson still looks fit as a fiddle, slender and diminutive and clad in black jeans, black T-shirt and running shoes, tying up a new bandanna every couple songs, only to throw it out into the crowd. That honeyed voice ages like the finest wine, never crackling or wavering, not even when he slips into a mock Spanish accent to handle Julio Iglesias' part in "To All the Girls I've Loved Before."

Nelson and Family opted for the stripped-down vibe of his two recent studio triumphs--the Daniel Lanois- produced Teatro and last year's smoking set of blues standards, Milk Cow Blues--choogling along like Workingman's Dead had morphed with his classic Red Headed Stranger. There was lightly brushed snare drum, buzzing mouth harp, a trio of tasty guitars (Nelson can pick out a lead on those old nylon strings of his like nobody's business), Bobbie on the ivories and not much else. They certainly didn't need it.

With the house lights up and everyone--the blue-haired Betties, the bikers in tank tops and bad tattoos, the hotties in acid wash and knock-off Native American silver and turquoise jewelry--clapping along, "On the Road Again" motored along like a tour bus doing 80 on the interstate. A take on "Me and Bobby McGee" turned into a spastic two-step with all three guitarists trading licks. "Blue Skies" was given a reggae lilt, and Nelson turned around the melody at every chance, behind the beat one chorus, on top of it the next, several beats in front of it after that. Song after song, his phrasing was impeccable, whether focusing on his recent artistic rebirth with a lazy stroll through "Milk Cow Blues," or dipping into the past for a crowd-pleaser in "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow up to Be Cowboys."

Seizing the opportunity for maximum crowd-pleasing, a giant Texas flag unfurled behind the stage during "Cowboys." At that moment, the South did indeed rise again, if only for one song. Too bad for the rebels in the house it was only South Jersey.