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\n\tThe Outlaw Music Festival began nine years back as a single event in Scranton, Pennsylvania, featuring Willie Nelson<\/a>, Neil Young, Sheryl Crow, Chris Robinson, and Lee Ann Womack. It\u2019s slowly morphed into a traveling fest that brings Nelson and a rotating cast of top-grade support acts to amphitheaters across America every summer, and they leveled up significantly last year by placing Bob Dylan<\/a> in the penultimate slot every night of the run.<\/p>\n \n\tThey repeated the successful Bob\/Willie formula this summer for an extensive, 36-show trek, and sprinkled on acts like Wilco<\/a>, Sheryl Crow, Billy Strings, Waxahatchee, Lucinda Williams<\/a>, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, and Bruce Hornsby & The Night Sweats at various stops along the way. Some nights have slightly stronger bills than others, but it\u2019s undoubtedly the most exciting\/eclectic multi-artist show of the summer amphitheater season by a wide margin.<\/p>\n \n\tThat was very clear August 1 when Lucinda Williams, and Wilco played truncated sets at Long Island\u2019s Jones Beach Amphitheater before handing the evening over to Dylan and Nelson. These are four totally unique acts with fairly different approaches to live performances, and their own massive followings, but they all have a deep love and respect for American roots music that permeated through the entire night. <\/p>\n \n\tDue to tremendous good fortune, it was an unseasonably cool night at Jones Beach following two weeks of scorching, record-high temperatures, and a massive thunderstorm the prior evening that generated flood warnings all across the region. This placed everyone in a cheerful mood as Lucinda Williams took the stage in the very late afternoon. (Unfortunately, I arrived too late to see opening act Waylon Payne, but I caught him later when he played with Willie Nelson. Jones Beach is a beautiful amphitheater directly on the water, but the mass transit options from New York City are less than ideal.)<\/p>\n