POP MUSIC REVIEW : Willie Nelson Adds Few Colors to His By-the-Numbers Concert

It’s probably a good thing for the gamblers of the world that Mike Tyson massacred Michael Spinks on Monday, safely three days before the art of odds-making disintegrated into so much rubble at Willie Nelson’s Pacific Amphitheatre concert Thursday.

Up until then, it seemed that there were still a few sure bets in this all-too-unpredictable world: the sun rising in the east, Mike Tyson pummeling anything rated less than 3 megatons and Willie Nelson bookending his by-the-numbers set with “Whiskey River.”

Cheap shot, you say? Consider this: When the Red-Headed Stranger ambled on stage, and, instead of the immutable “Whiskey River” opener, he began singing “Spanish Eyes,” drummer Paul English suddenly looked as disoriented as Michael Spinks after 90 seconds in the ring with Tyson.

But that is good news for Nelson fans who have been frustrated with the near-geological predictability of his shows through most of the 1970s and ‘80s.

True, immediately after “Spanish Eyes” the band lapsed into “Whiskey River”--and English finally regained his composure--followed by “Funny How Time Slips Away,” “Crazy,” “Nightlife” and most of the others that were India-inked onto his set list somewhere in the dim, dark past. But with Willie anymore, it is the little things that count.

Such as during the Kris Kristofferson song set when he bounced back from a monochromatic reading of “Me and Bobby McGee” and came alive briefly for “Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again).” He demonstrated his oft-underexploited talent as a song stylist in a vocal that gently wove around the lyrics’ tenderhearted reminiscence of a bygone romance.

The frequently tired pop standard set drawn from his late-’70s “Stardust” phase also benefited Thursday from a little attention to vocal detail. So even though in Hoagy Carmichael’s “All of Me” he roller-skated across the surface of one of the most exquisitely sculpted melodies in all of pop, he went a long way toward balancing the books with a classy and honest reading of Carmichael’s “Stardust.”

Best of all, after the second rendition of “Whiskey River,” which typically closes his shows, Nelson stuck around and offered a compelling new song from his own pen--”Still Still Moving to Me”--and a tight, hard-swinging version of “Milkcow Blues.”

Although it is often looked in recent years as if Nelson’s talent was going down for the count, it would appear that--Michael Spinks notwithstanding--occasionally the beaten can rise again.