Patient Fans Bid Farewell to Judds

If the Judds needed any additional proof of their fans’ devotion, they got it Saturday night in Devore in a display of we’ll-do-anything-for-you commitment and endurance that would have done a school of spawning Alaskan king salmon proud.

As the last California concert audience to see the duo before mother Naomi Judd retires from touring for health reasons, fans were subjected to a traffic nightmare just to get in.

The faithful braved a snail’s-pace crawl that took up to two hours to inch the last two miles from freeway off-ramps to the parking lot of what seemed to be logistically the worst site in the Southland to hold a large-scale concert: Glen Helen Regional Park.

Once on the grounds, nearly 17,000 fans paid $25 a head for general admission seats--all lawn or dirt, and 80% of which were so far from the makeshift stage that for all you could see , it might have been the Everly Brothers who were saying adieu.

When, however, the headliners got under way shortly before 11 p.m., Wynonna’s gutsy growl and Naomi’s sugarcane-sweet harmonies made the presence of country’s best-loved mother-daughter team unmistakable.

Anyone looking for emotional displays on this last Golden State stop on the duo’s long farewell tour will have to keep hoping--perhaps they are holding back any tearful goodbys for their final , final Judds show Dec. 4 in Murfreesboro, Tenn.

There were no extended speeches, no cry-me-a-river outbursts. Likewise, there were no lengthy solo spots to provide a glimpse of Wynonna’s incipient solo career, nor excessive spotlight on Naomi during her swan song tour as the act’s engaging, wisecracking frontwoman--just an hour’s worth of Judds country rock ‘n’ rhythm at its sharpest. The bill also included Merle Haggard, the Texas Tornados and Billy Dean.