LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Are there any more real cowboys?” Neil Young sang Saturday evening at the Hollywood Bowl on a rare night when he was neither the headliner nor, at age 77, even shut to the oldest artist on the monthly bill.

Delivering an fast respond to, Willie Nelson, donning a cowboy hat and pink-white-and-blue guitar strap, slowly but surely strolled on to the phase on his 90th birthday, bringing the crowd of additional than 17,000 to its ft.

Nelson sat in a chair — a single of the couple of onstage concessions he is made to age — and joined Young for the rest of their 1985 duet, “Are There Any A lot more Serious Cowboys?”

“I want to thank all the artists who arrived out tonight to enable celebrate whatever it is we’re celebrating,” reported Nelson, feigning senility and acquiring a chortle.

The moment came a few several hours into the 1st of a two-night celebration of the state legend at the open up-air Los Angeles amphitheater, the place generations of stars sang his tracks in tribute.

“As a child expanding up in Texas, it appeared like there was practically nothing even bigger than Willie Nelson,” explained Owen Wilson, just one of the evening’s emcees along with Helen Mirren, Ethan Hawke and Jennifer Garner. “And looking out at the Hollywood Bowl tonight, it however feels like you will find nothing at all greater than Willie Nelson.”

Right after Youthful, Nelson introduced out George Strait, a place celebrity of the next technology, for their self-referential duet, “Sing Just one With Willie,” adopted by the Willie perennial, “Pancho and Lefty,” with Strait singing the section when performed by the late Merle Haggard.

Nelson then shouted, “Come out and roll 1 with me Snoop!”

Strutting out came rapper Snoop Dogg, sitting down next to Nelson as they launched into their stoner anthem, “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.” Perhaps fittingly, just about every appeared to overlook the words and phrases at occasions. The two close friends appeared way too content to treatment.

“Somebody make some noise for the legend Mr. Willie Nelson!” Snoop shouted mid-music.

The parade of companions illustrated a person of the night’s themes: Willie delivers persons alongside one another.

Tale proceeds

“All of the unexpected, it didn’t make a difference if you had been a hillbilly or a hippie, everybody was a Willie Nelson lover,” Wilson said of Nelson’s late-blooming emergence as a singing superstar when he still left Nashville, Tennessee, and returned to his indigenous Texas in the 1970s. “Even the Dalai Lama is a Willie Nelson fan. It really is true.”

The group, which ranged from compact youngsters to seniors, illustrated the point. The stands were dotted with cowboy hats although hippies danced in the aisles and weed smoke wafted in the air.

Miranda Lambert thrilled them with a rousing, sing-along model of “Mammas Really don’t Enable Your Toddlers Develop Up to Be Cowboys,” Nelson’s 1978 strike with Waylon Jennings. The Chicks blazed via 1970’s “Bloody Mary Morning” at the identical crack-neck speed that Willie and his Spouse and children Band played it reside in their key.

Nelson has outlived approximately each and every member of that band, which backed him for a long time of consistent touring and recording. His tiny sister and piano participant, Bobbie Nelson, died very last year. She obtained her very own tribute from Norah Jones, who banged the keys through the younger Nelson’s saloon-type solo song, “Down Yonder,” from Willie Nelson’s definitive 1975 album, “Red Headed Stranger.”

Though many of the girls who took the phase played rousing rockers, most of the males went in for quiet emotion.

Chris Stapleton saved his guitar at his aspect through a smooth, reflective rendition of “Always on My Mind,” Nelson’s most significant solo strike of the 1980s. Nelson’s son Lukas sang “Angel Flying Also Close to The Ground” alone with his acoustic guitar, his voice a useless ringer for his dad’s.

Another surviving member of the Family members Band, harmonica learn Mickey Raphael, was aspect of the weekend’s home band, led by Don Was, which backed almost anyone.

Nelson also has outlived most of his basic collaborators. But an vital one, his 86-yr-previous Highwaymen bandmate Kris Kristofferson, created it to the stage to be a part of Rosanne Dollars, the daughter of a different Highwayman: Johnny Income.

Rosanne Income was singing Nelson’s “Loving Her Was Easier (Than Nearly anything I’ll At any time Do Once more)” when Kristofferson, who wrote the song, arrived out and harmonized with her on the choruses.

Nelson’s musical range was another night theme.

“He blends and bends genres,” Mirren explained from the stage. “His timing and classes are his possess.”

Leon Bridges’ “Night Life” confirmed off Nelson’s affinity for the blues, as did Jones’ jazzy excursion via “Funny How Time Slips Away” from 1961, when Nelson was regarded mostly as a songwriter of hits for some others.

Ziggy Marley sang “Still Is Continue to Shifting To Me,” which Nelson recorded in 1993 and later sang with Toots and the Maytals in one particular of his occasional forays into reggae. Marley shouted “Wee-lay!” in his Jamaican accent through the song.

Sunday’s evening exhibit will attribute a whole diverse selection of functions like Dave Matthews, Sheryl Crow and Emmylou Harris.

Young initial took the phase with his early collaborator Stephen Stills. The pair performed a revved up version of “For What It is really Really worth,” swapping guitar solos on the classic hit they manufactured as users of Buffalo Springfield in 1966.

Nelson introduced out all the evening’s artists to be part of him for the Carter Family’s 1935 track, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” a longtime live preferred of his and the classic closing track for all of region audio.

It was obviously meant to be the conclusion, as Hawke took the mic and started out to thank everyone for coming.

But the 90-12 months-outdated wasn’t completely ready to end. He interrupted and broke into Mac Davis’ “It’s Tricky to Be Humble,” which Nelson and his sons recorded in 2019.

It was a funny selection for a closing music, but its refrain was a great comic coda for a man who experienced been drowned in adoration all night:

“To know me is to enjoy me, I need to be a hell of a male. Oh lord, it really is really hard to be humble. But I am accomplishing the most effective that I can.”