Willie Nelson’s 90th Birthday Is Smoking, With Snoop Dogg, George Strait and Neil Young Among the Party Favorites at the Hollywood Bowl
variety.comChris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic “Thanks for coming to my dad’s birthday party,” said Micah Nelson, a few songs into an all-star tribute to Willie Nelson at the Hollywood Bowl, attended by a sold-out house happy that Willie had found a way to schedule the 90th anniversary of his birth on a Saturday night.
With roughly seven decades of songwriting and recording to commemorate, though, the party is stretching over two nights, bundled together and sold as a single ticket, where by the end of Sunday night everyone will have heard about 50 artists perform a total of about 75 songs.
Ironically, one of the first numbers performed Saturday evening was young Texas country artist Charley Crockett doing a cut that Nelson had a hit with as a budding songwriter in the late ’50s: “The Party’s Over.” That title proved as un-prescient for Nelson’s career 65 years ago as it proved unprophetic for the scope of the Bowl celebration this weekend.
But a little irony is always welcome in Willie’s world. Saturday’s show climaxed with Nelson emerging more than three hours into the 220-minute proceedings to join forces with George Strait, Neil Young and Snoop Dogg, symbolically representing how welcome Willie has been in the worlds of country, rock and cannabis, respectively.
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