Outlaw Music Festival: Willie Nelson & Family/Bob Dylan/Wilco/Lucinda Williams @ Northwell at Jones Beach Theater, Wantagh, NY 8/1/25

The last time I went to Jones Beach was June of last year for the same festival. That year, Willie was too sick to make it, so his son Lukas headlined the night and did a great job. This year he was missed but he was playing solo in Montana this evening.

The commute was uneventful. This year Willie made it, but the commute was miserable both coming and going. In short, the NICE bus isn't so nice. This pre and post story is a tale I'm going to take a long, ponderous story to tell, so if you don't care about this sort of local topic, skip right past it. Consider this my excuse for missing Waylon Payne solo since I left Brooklyn on the L at 2pm expecting to make 4pm and catch him. He was the point man in Willie's band for vocals this time, being the son of his long time guitarist Jody Payne who passed in 2013.

For many, many years Jones Beach was an easy commute for the NYC concert goer--much more than the other "market" amphitheater the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, NJ. September 13th is the date there, but I bet after his November UK dates there will be some end of year North East theatre shows in NYC, Boston, etc. I had it in the back of my head that I might suck up Jones Beach again for Neil Young and The Who later this month, but I also may see those tours somewhere else given this turn of events.

From Manhattan when I first moved here over 30 years ago they would have a package ticket at Penn Station that would get you the train to Freeport, then the bus to the Theatre. At some point, this service ended and you would have to take a car. Then came the NICE (Nassau Inter-County Express) bus. They are still fitted with Metrocard machines that an 8" x 14" sign in the window around the corner as the bus leaves boldly warns is being phased out. In NYC, the MTA is feverishly trying to ween subway commuters off Metrocard to use OMNY, the "upgrade" that nobody wanted that will allow you to tap money from your card, phone or the card you can buy in approximately 1/2 of the subway stations. Once that last Metrocard is drained you never use it again if you become reliant on your OMNY card. In fact, you are punished because your free rides after 12 for the week have to come from the same source.

So the East New York to Jamaica to Freeport LIRR commute was smooth and the duel off-peak round trip ticket I got in the nick of time for $21 I thought would take care of me. Going it did. I was met with arrow pointing to the Jones Beach bus just like last year and waited in line with 100-150 people heading to the show. I saw a sign 8 x 10 (inches) out of the corner of my eye that said NICE no longer services LIVE NATION and the bus was for Jones Beach only. My thinking was this was moot since last year the bus dropped us off at an underpass around the corner from the parking lot. The bus pulled up and we were met with a driver that couldn't take bills or OMNY--Metrocard or $2.90 in exact change OR download the ticket on the NICE ap. While I was doing that third option, the bus filled to capacity, but the driver assured us (about 100 remaining people) there would be another bus very soon. "Very soon" implies 5-10 minutes. This is an hourly scheduled bus. There were no extra busses, so riders became frustrated and began to get Ubers. Apparently, there is some kind of Theater sponsored drop off to "ridershare" due "increasing popularity." However, yeah if people who come from NYC are taking the train and spent 100-200+ a ticket, I think splitting a $30 rideshare becomes very popular versus a $3.25 bus that may or may not show up and won't get you there in time. Only the poor, locals and the angrily stubborn to the point of reactionary like myself would ride this bus with witnessing the set of Waylon Payne on the line.

I would have used the "popular" rideshare too if I hadn't bought my bus ticket on the ap the previous driver suggested and had been told there would be a short wait for the next bus making me first in a 100 strong line of deserted bus riders. As minutes turned to tens of minutes the chatter in the line behind me became more and more frustrated. German voices confused, people swearing the driver said 5 minutes, people making plans to share a car. Busses stopping not in service perhaps a driver pointing to the timetable on a miniscule sign. That sort of thing. Well, the 4:24 bus that was supposed to arrive for load in 4:08 made it there around 4:20, so I got on it and did my walk under the underpass through the parking lot. The driver seemed surprised no other bus had arrived since the last one. I was surprised that 20 people waiting it out with me also didn't choose the "popular" $30 option, but they, like me, probably committed their $3.25 too.

After all that, I got in the gate and decided to grab a beer hearing Lucinda clearly in the background. Someone that saw me waiting at the bus stop congratulated me for arriving and let me know Lucinda just started when I groused that I was late. Looking at the setlist, I'm pretty sure it was the opening song as I was getting in the seach and ticket scan line. That mercifully didn't take much time and I got to my seat. I've been seeing only one or two Bob shows per tour. I used to try to see every show in the region when it was cheaper, now I try to get a prime seat if it is going to be just one and I can get something resembling a deal in today's market, so I had 13th row center and lucked into seat 1 in the aisle which was beautiful because I blew out my knee earlier in the week and was still on the mend from needing a cane for a day midweek.

Anyway, Lucinda Williams I haven't seen since Bo Ramsey was in her band on guitar so I'm guessing early aughts. She's been through a lot with a stroke a while back and seems to have come out of things ok. I guess she opened a bar with Jesse Malin at the old Brownies that recently was Heaven Can Wait. So kudos to that, I'll be in there sometime probably sooner than later, but that can mean 2 weeks, 2 months or 2 years finally 3 months before it closes depending on what is going on. Every time a new bar opens up in that space it doesn't seem like much has changed. I did is Robert Gordon there right before he passed in the Heaven Can Wait itinerary and that seems like eons ago. I was psyched to hear about the cover concept album of Lucinda doing Beatles FROM ABBEY ROAD. I thought it was forthcoming until this morning when I realized it came out last year. I just heard her album West recently for the first time. I think of that and everything after Essence as new even though I bought some after that one, even though I go back to "Passionate Kisses" well before Car Wheels On The Gravel Road took over the world.

Wilco were next and I wasn't in the mood. This is a band foisted upon me by life. I like them in a cursory sort of way, just some bands you want to see once every 20 years or so and I've seen Wilco about 5 times in that time frame including a couple headline shows in recent years. I like Jeff Tweedy fine, but I'm just seen him enough for a while. I saw them at Kings Theater a couple years back with a friend's extra ticket and United Palace before that on a different friend's extra ticket and they opened for Bob in Hoboken. Keep in mind I was a massive Uncle Tupelo fan seeing them in real time at CBGB's and Charlie Tap on the floor with 50 other people in Cambridge. That said, the Guthrie album they did with Billy Bragg was great and they did "California Stars" so there you go, I liked that. Nels Cline is always awesome and "U.S. Blues" was a cool cover with him soloing, so it put me in a better mood. Just because you are tired of something doesn't always mean you don't or can't like it.

Bob came on a little after 8, after I had my piss break and half a light beer in hand that I didn't refill until getting a whiskey river (no Heavens Door I could find!) for Willie so I was sobering off for "thoughtful" Bob analysis. Bob hates photos to Yondr extremes but I snuck in a couple sneaky 30 second clips during daylight for his first couple covers by Bo Diddley and George "Wild Child" Butler I hadn't heard yet but didn't really take much after the sun went down. I might of attempted to get a 5 second clip of the "split you wide open like the EARLY ROMAN KINGS" line but that line was deemphasized and came slightly earlier than I thought it would because I was getting a moon shot and the whole concept was fucked up. When that happens, I get mad for two seconds and shoved the phone in my pocket disgusted with myself that I was risking getting tossed by a hired goon in a paid for $225 seat for an ill-fated conceptual video. I didn't even bother to try for the other three covers. Maybe I'll get one or two of those in Jersey next month I thought to myself. Those straight outta or into Theme Time Radio Hour were "I'll Keep It All To Myself" by Jerry Lee Lewis written by Charlie Rich, "Share Your Love With Me" by Bobby "Blue" Bland and the long covered by Bob "Searching For A Soliders Grave" done by the Louvin Brothers and written by the Anglin Twins. Trying to find the original I see someone posted Bob's version from last night. It looks better than what I could've got with my old phone enlargement capacities, but the whole point of the blog clip posts on anything on this blog is more about being an extension of how I'm seeing something, not "quality footage." You can see a publicist or a professional bootlegger for that.

Seeing Willie with Bob on the baseball stadium tours 15-20 years ago was a different experience. I was there for Bob and wasn't there for Willie the way I was when I saw him headline acoustic once at the Bottom Line in the early aughts. I've come to like and appreciate Willie more in recent years and was very disappointed he couldn't make it last year. This year's appearance seemed more like a rarified gift. Yeah, you could hear he is compensating with the COPD/Emphysema but who cares. He can still sing and carry the song in other ways and if he can't his someone (Waylon Payne) will come in to take over so Willie can take a little break and come in to harmonize. Let's put it this way: Willie has a new album in 2025 and everybody else on the bill currently does not. Maybe Bob is woodshedding and will have something in a few months or years. Wilco have archive tapes and Lucinda's Beatles record is still "new." Willie had one last year too that featured the Tom Waits cover "Last Leaf" that seemed like an old standard but was on his Bad As Me album in 2011. Willie played 21 songs last night and one was a medley of "Funny How Time Slips Away"/"Crazy"/"Night Life." I've been obsessing of "Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground" of late and he did that one too. 92 years young, he could make it to 100 easy based on this show. Might as well accentuate the positive when anything can happen.

So, with the great show over, I ambled out to walk through the parking lot and walked to the end of the lot to the underpass sign on the wrong side of the lot so emerging on the other side I still had to walk a bit until I got to the bus loop pick up. Except after looking into it, there was no bus, just a few people waiting for cars. Then I figured well I'll have to suck up 25 to get to the LIRR. Except last train was now 11:47 and it was 11:45, so then it became eat 64 bucks to get back home. When I first checked for shits and giggles that 30 mile car ride was over 120 and nixed fast, but the idea of waiting on the platform til 5 something am made that in the realm of thinkable. Fortunately, the concert surge had subsided.

Comedy of errors, but I swear I never had this level of hassle coming and going to a show at Jones Beach before.