To call the three artists who took the Les Schwab Amphitheater stage over the weekend “legendary” would be an understatement.

Yes, Willie Nelson, Alison Krauss and the Pixies are all legends, obviously, but “legends” play Les Schwab all the time. We’re talking about revolutionaries — artists who took the parameters of their given genres and turned them on their heads, creating new sounds, new genres and influencing generations of musicians who followed.

Cases in point: Without Nelson, you wouldn’t have outlaw country (and sold-out shows in Bend by Cody Jinks and Granger Smith earlier this year). Without Pixies, you wouldn’t have at least half of Les Schwab’s schedule this summer, from last month’s Decemberists concert to Portugal. The Man coming up later this month. And without Krauss, you can forget about the modern bluegrass revival that has saturated Bend in recent years (oh yeah, and her 27 Grammy Awards — the most for any living recipient — speak for themselves).

Krauss and Nelson played for a sold-out crowd of 5,819 on Saturday; Pixies played to a more intimate audience of 2,616 on Sunday. Read on for highlights, lowlights and everything in between.

Down to the river to play

Krauss probably fared the best of all the acts last weekend, delivering a satisfying 75 minutes (including a two-song encore) that seemed to breeze by in a fraction of that time. Without her usual cohorts in Union Station save bassist Barry Bales, the fiddler, vocalist and songwriter focused on the gospel side of her rootsy equation, letting her voice take center-stage (and having vocailist/dobro player Sidney Cox and vocalist Suzanne Cox of The Cox Family, Krauss’ collaborator on the 1994 album “I Know Who Holds Tomorrow,” only enhanced that).

Last year’s classic country covers set “Windy City” was well-represented, including the two Nelson songs Krauss tackled for the record, “I Never Cared for You” and the bonus track “Angel Flying to Close to the Ground.” No Nelson onstage here (which might have been expected, considering the circumstances), but with Krauss’ jazzy, angelic vocal and pianist Matt Rollings’ gentle runs on the latter song in particular, nothing felt amiss.

The highlights came early and often (indeed, I quit marking songs as such, otherwise my notes would have been that one word scribbled over and over). A pair of songs from 1999’s “Forget About It” album — “Stay” and the title track — were early jaw-droppers, with Krauss nailing the first of many acrobatic vocal lines in the former, and the seven-piece band getting a chance to stretch out a bit on the latter. Another low-key stunner, “Ghost in This House,” featured the Cox siblings on harmonies, while “The Lucky One” featured Sidney Cox’s dobro and Krauss’ weeping fiddle in a number of emotional back-and-forth solos.

The focus on gospel, especially in the latter half of the set with songs such as “I am Weary (Let Me Rest),” “When God Dips His Love in My Heart” and “Walk Over God’s Heaven,” meant Krauss’ fiddle playing took a backseat. But her tasteful playing on songs such as the aforementioned “Lucky One” and the Gypsy-leaning “Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us” (from her 2007 collaboration with Robert Plant, “Raising Sand”) accomplished more emotionally and musically than any long-winded solo ever could. And when the band put down its instruments for two of Krauss’ a cappella songs from the “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?” soundtrack, the effect was staggering.

Roll him up and smoke him

No beating around the bush: Nelson is past his prime. It took him a good handful of songs into his hour-plus set to warm up both his trademark voice and guitar playing (on Trigger, naturally) — and even then, the guitar playing was a bit shaky. A second six-string slinger would have helped immensely, though the rest of The Family Band — including Nelson’s pianist sister Bobbie — did a fine job keeping things chugging along.

Things picked up with “Good Hearted Woman,” a song co-written with the late Waylon Jennings and dedicated this night to the country star. It was one of at least four tributes to deceased fellow music legends — others included the Nelson/Merle Haggard collaboration “It’s All Going to Pot,” a sauntering take on Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Move it on Over” and Hank William’s bouncing “Jambalaya” — that offered some of the most touching and (unintentionally, perhaps) saddest moments of the set. These were Nelson’s friends as well as musical contemporaries, and watching him sing their songs onstage made it hard to forget Nelson is one of the last men standing from that generation.

That gets to the crux of the show. Of course, Nelson delivered the hits — “On the Road Again,” “Georgia on My Mind,” a medley of “Funny How Time Slips Away” and “Crazy” late in the set — but the thrill was less in the often shaky performances and more in just the chance to see the man sing his songs, at any age. Performance-wise, he fared best on songs that cheekily acknowledged the passage of time, such as “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die” or the tongue-in-cheek “I Woke Up Not Dead Again Today” from last year’s album “God’s Problem Child.”

Nelson may not be as spry as he once was, but his personal legend goes a long way, as does his clear enthusiasm for performing. He threw at least two cowboy hats and multiple red bandannas to lucky audience members throughout the set (always replacing the previous bandanna with an identical one, which tickled me to no end). More humor (at least to this reviewer): The PA pumped nothing but Nelson between his and Krauss’ sets. And it never gets old watching Nelson wrestle with Trigger, a classical guitar that I’m pretty sure has never sounded like a classical guitar in its entire existence.

Waves of mutilation

Perhaps it’s not surprising the Pixies became indie rock’s ultimate legacy act. Reunited since 2004 (the year the band debuted at Les Schwab Amphitheater) after breaking up in 1993, the quartet waited a decade to release its first reunion album, 2014’s “Indie Cindy” — and by the time that came out, the band’s heart and soul, bassist and vocalist Kim Deal, was out. Of course, 2016’s follow-up “Head Carrier” came much faster, but the new material hasn’t exactly caught on with the band’s fan base.

This was evident throughout the band’s nearly two-hour set. Whenever a song from “Head Carrier” popped up, it seemed to suck the energy out of the crowd. “All I Think About Now,” a tribute to Deal sung by new bassist Paz Lenchantin, was the notable exception, though it’s not clear if the strong response was based on the merits of the song itself or the fact that the opening riff is suspiciously close to “Where is My Mind?” (Oh, and speaking of that song, the band’s “Fight Club” fandom is still alive and well and clearly gaining new members, judging from the hoards of kids who rushed the stage.)

Fortunately, the band weighted its set heavily toward its early classics “Come on Pilgrim,” “Surfer Rosa” and “Doolittle,” to the audience’s delight. “Cactus,” an underrated sleeper from “Surfer Rosa,” was a nice surprise to kick things off, with “Bone Machine” punching the energy up immediately after. “Mr. Grieves” and “Crackity Jones” gave the moshers something to slam to, while “Caribou” found leader Black Francis in fine, shrieking form. The juxtaposition of his calm demeanor with his often violent vocal delivery helped sell punishing numbers such as “Gouge Away,” “Broken Face” and especially the hipster kiss-off “U-Mass.”

You could quibble with the set list. (Where was the love for “Bossanova,” other than a late-set inclusion of “Velouria?” Why is the band still playing both versions of “Wave of Mutilation” in the same set, when clearly the “UK Surf” version is the only version that matters?) But it’s clear that in this third incarnation of the band — post-Deal, post reunion records — everyone seems much happier than they did in 2004 (or probably 1986 to 1993, for that matter).

Sleigh Bells opened for Pixies with a set of electronica-meets-metal-meets-pop, a combination that went from puzzling to pretty damn interesting multiple times throughout the half-hour set. In the end, it wasn’t interesting enough to outshine frontwoman Alexis Krauss (no relation to Alison), a breakout star in the making, in whatever genre she chooses to pursue.

— Reporter: 541-617-7814, bmcelhiney@bendbulletin.com