Willie Nelson and Tami Neilson perform together on the Outlaw Tour. Image: Supplied<\/p>\n
While it was a career highlight to open for the people who \u201chave laid the foundations in music and songwriting that we all stand on\u201d, Neilson says the gig wasn\u2019t without its challenges. \u201cI\u2019m the first one on, so I walk out onto that stage totally cold. Nobody is there to see me. Nobody knows who I am, and I have 30 minutes to win them over,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a very different feeling than when I walk onto a stage anywhere in New Zealand.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
There was another chill in the air given the current political climate in the United States. \u201cYou can feel this level of tension everywhere you go,\u201d she says. \u201cYou don\u2019t sit with your back to the door at a restaurant, which you never even think of when you\u2019re in New Zealand. It\u2019s something that Americans just live in, that it\u2019s like a lobster slowly being boiled \u2013 they don\u2019t realise the level of stress on their nervous system because it\u2019s just become their normal.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the country music space, traditionally a conservative stronghold, Neilson worried about even saying where she was from in front of a big crowd. \u201cI\u2019ve never been nervous to say I am originally from Canada before, but this was right in the middle of the tariff stuff and I was worried I was going to get booed off the stage,\u201d she says. \u201cWillie also performs with a giant American flag behind him on stage and I didn\u2019t want to upset anybody.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tami Neilson performs in the Outlaw Festival. Image: Supplied<\/p>\n
While most of her fretting didn\u2019t come to anything, there was an incident at US customs that proved the changing times. \u201cI was standing in the queue, and \u2018Don\u2019t Dream It\u2019s Over\u2019 started playing over the speaker which I thought was a good sign that I didn\u2019t need to worry,\u201d she says. \u201cI was nearly at the front of the queue when this man started getting dragged away and yelling \u2018this is what happens when you vote for Trump\u2019. It just changed the whole temperature of the room.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Returning to Aotearoa just last month, she describes the homecoming as \u201cone big exhale\u201d after the US. In her new album she sings of how the titular Neon Cowgirl \u201cfelt like welcome home\u201d in Nashville, but what makes her feel like home in Aotearoa? \u201cHonestly, as soon as I walk through that marae archway with the beautiful carvings, and there\u2019s the sound of native birds and playing over the speakers, tears fill my eyes,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s like the Stargate for me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n