Merle Haggard show in Austin Texas

As you may know already. Last night I went to see Merle Haggard at The Back Yard in Bee Cave, Texas. First of all, it was a great show. The Back Yard is a outdoor amphitheatre thatâ€™s about 15 miles west of Austin. I had originally went to the Back Yard in 1998 to see the Neville Brothers (yeah I know). When I went then it was way out in the country and the amphitheatre had all kinds of big oak trees all over the place. This time when I went there I was a bit disappointed in the venue. The country thing was not really there, now thereâ€™s a huge shopping center surrounding the Amphitheatre and for some reason they decide to move the location out from under the oak trees and put it back as close to the shopping center parking lot as possible. It just kinda took a little away from the ambience. I guess thatâ€™s the way it works when there’s a huge population growth. The other thing about the new â€œlookâ€ Back Yard was that they didnâ€™t have their shit together on the food and drinks. For all of the 2-3 thousand people there they only had one â€œtableâ€ for food and two â€œtablesâ€ for beer. The tall boy Lone Stars were $3.50 each but they ran out before Merle started. So I had to settle for $4.00 12oz Tecateâ€™s. So, the next time I go out there Iâ€™ll for sure get me a sixer for the parking lot. Kinda makes me sound like a lush, doesnâ€™t? Anyway the show was good. The opening band was The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash; great name but that was about it. Then The Strangers (Merleâ€™s Band) got all set-up and opened with-out Merle but did three songs with a Austin singer songwriter (canâ€™t remember his name) that reminded me of Willie Nelson. Apparently he had written several songs Merle and Merle wanted him to open the show. It was pretty cool. Then Merle came out and played for a little more than a hour. Merle Haggard and The Strangers are on tour for the 3 weeks promoting his new album Chicago Wind, so if you get a chance to see them. Do it.