From just the first few notable notes of “We’ll Be Alright,” the opening track of last year’s A Few Stars Apart, from Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, it’s déjà vu all over again, and once-removed. Floating gracefully over a slow-going waltz pulse, Nelson’s vibrato-basted and carefully phrased tones make no mistake or apology about Lukas’s noble lineage as Willie Nelson’s boy making good.
In keeping with Willie’s general M.O., Lukas’s music is a positive and healing force, as he will have a chance to impart again when his band returns to town to The Arlington Theatre on Wednesday, August 24.
Lukas Nelson, alongside his brotherly cohort Micah, has played local stages multiple times, from intimate late-night sets at SOhO to the “big houses” with hip elders. There were the Nelson boys, backing up Willie at the Chumash Casino in 2011, and more substantially, appearing as the actual backup band for the legendary Neil Young at the Bowl in 2016 (the semi-infamous curfew-buster night) and later in a set of tour warmup shows at the Lobero.