Willie Nelson

Friday March 3 2017. We have been following Willie Nelson's concert cancellations due to a lingering health ailment. We purchased tickets months ago to see him at the Plant City Strawberry Festival and hoped he would not cancel our date.

The show was still going on as of this morning so we drove the 50 miles to Plant City Florida. Arriving in plenty of time we decided to get our strawberry short cake before the show. We stopped at Brandon Farms Market, which is one of our favorite spots for this local delectable delight. Brandon Farms bakes their own cake and also offers ice cream when building the fresh strawberry masterpiece. 

Our bellies filled, we drove the short distance to the fairgrounds. Because of our little detour to Brandon Farms we entered town from the southwest. I'll remember this route because it avoids the heavy festival traffic you encounter going through the main part of town. We pulled right into our preferred parking lot and were soon strolling past all the carnival rides on our way to the Wish Farms stage.

The arena was soon filled to capacity, they said it was the first time an afternoon show had been sold out. There was no warm up act, at precisely 3:30 Willie walked his sister to the piano, picked up his guitar and started singing. No announcer saying “Here's Willie!”, no small talk about how wonderful it was to be there, no jokes, nothing. What he did do was sing one song after another for one hour and fifteen minutes. At one point he did introduce his band and I saw him take a drink from a SOLO cup just once.

Despite his resent breathing troubles, Willie still has his distinctive voice. His vocals are strong for an 83 year old, the only hint of his ailment was from some words spoken rather than sung. I never knew he was such an accomplished guitar player. I'm not a expert but I know good playing when I hear it and he is certainly a master of his craft.

We not only got to mark off a bucket list item from our RV travels list, but we genuinely enjoyed the show by one of the last great “outlaws” of country music.