Life Is a Carnival: A Musical Celebration of Robbie Robertson
Kia Forum, Los Angeles October 17, 2024
“We’ve had four days to learn these songs,” announces guitarist Mike Campbell from L.A.’s Kia Forum stage, “and we’re gonna play every single one of them tonight.” This is no empty threat. It’s the first indication of what the night holds in store for those attending this roughly five-hour concert event, officially dubbed “Life Is A Carnival: A Musical Celebration Of Robbie Robertson.” It’s big, it’s ambitious, it’s star-packed, it’s being filmed by director Martin Scorsese, and it’s a whole lot of Robbie Robertson - who died last year at 80 and is unlikely to be forgotten soon.
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READ MORE: Robbie Robertson Interviewed: “I remember saying to Dylan, there’s too many verses in this…”
Scorsese’s involvement will certainly ensure that. His highly regarded 1978 film The Last Waltz captured the official farewell concert of The Band with Robertson at the helm, and this night’s lengthy event will likely provide an appropriate bookend to the musician’s colorful career.
Star-packed? You bet. Among those celebrating Robertson’s work onstage tonight are Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Bob Weir, Eric Church, Jim James, Bruce Hornsby, Trey Anastasio, Lucinda Williams, Taj Mahal, Margo Price, Ryan Bingham, and a fairly stunning array of topline guitarists/instrumentalists/vocalists including Jamey Johnson, Warren Haynes, Robert Randolph, Mavis Staples and many more. You’re sure to see them all in the movie, and you’ll like what you see.
There are four sets in all, interspersed with vintage film clips of Robertson and others telling his story, some of which we may have heard before, but in this celebratory context enlightening and at times amusing. Robertson talking about the impact early rock/n’ roll made on him, of being captivated by Elvis Presley’s My Baby Left Me, of joining Ronnie Hawkins’ band in the ‘60s: “You won’t get much money,” Hawkins told him, “but you’ll get more pussy than Frank Sinatra.”
What is evident in the night’s programming was just how much of an impact Robbie Robertson had on music - both in North America and elsewhere. On video, there appears a younger Eric Clapton, recounting how he so admired The Band back then, he came to visit them in Woodstock and dropped hints about how much he’d like to join the group. But Robertson told him, “We don’t jam.” And sure enough, there he was onstage in LA a half-century later, playing Band songs and jamming the holy hell out Chest Fever.
And there are some surprises: Van Morrison, a longtime Robertson friend, showing up with his own Wonderful Remark, a great track produced by Robertson and featured on the soundtrack to Scorsese’s King Of Comedy in 1983. Looking slick and sunglassed-up, Morrison also offers Tupelo Honey and Days Like This; though it would’ve been marvelous to hear the Robertson/Morrison co-write 4% Pantomime from Cahoots onstage, the absence of The Band’s departed Richard Manuel, his duet partner on the record, might’ve been jarring.
Additionally, Morrison’s Caravan - which for many was the performance highlight of The Last Waltz - this time surfaced via a surprisingly rousing performance by guitarist Warren Haynes, the versatile player who’s worked with Gov’t Mule, the (post-Jerry Garcia) Grateful Dead, and both the Dickey Betts Band and the reunited Allman Brothers. Perhaps expectedly, his warm stage reception included audience-shouted requests including One Way Out and Whipping Post.
Haynes’ extreme adeptness illustrated the concert’s central triumph: All of Robertson’s work, interpreted by a raft of major musical talents - some more commercially famous then others, but so what? - still sounds as timeless today as it ever has, an ambition the man had since his earliest days as a songwriter. Thus, Jamey Johnson’s performance of The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down can still make the eyes moist, the new renditions of It Makes No Difference and Unfaithful Servant (by Jim James and Trey Anastasio respectively) sound fresh and wonderful, and the dazzling array of guitarists, who could have weaved an infinite number of guitar solos into every track heard, play with a level of respect and subtlety that all of Robertson’s work deserved.
How does a five-hour tribute to Robbie Robertson end? Some might say surrealistically: a fascinating trio comprised of Mavis Staples, Bob Weir, and Trey Anastasio sing The Weight, the 1968 hit which also served as the first single ever to be released bearing The Band’s name, and then a full-on all-star finale for the Bob Dylan-penned I Shall Be Released the closer on Music From Big Pink and about as miraculous as popular music can get. Arms around each other, extended in a long line from left to right on the stage, the night’s participants take a bow, say goodbye, and the movie is over.
It was very good.
Setlist:
SET 1
Up On Cripple Creek (with Eric Church)
Ophelia (with Ryan Bingham)
The Best of Everything (with Mike Campbell)
Evangeline (with Margo Price)
Acadian Driftwood (with Alison Russell)
Straight Down The Line (with Robert Randolph)
Who Do You Love? (with Taj Mahal and Robert Randolph)
Down South In New Orleans (with Dave Malone & Cyril Neville)
Go Back To Your Woods (with Bruce Hornsby)
King Harvest (Has Surely Come) (with Bruce Hornsby)
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (with Jamey Johnson)
SET 2
Broken Arrow (with Daniel Lanois)
Life Is a Carnival (with Warren Haynes and Taj Mahal)
Whispering Pines (with Lucinda Williams)
Twilight (with Nathaniel Rateliff)
Across The Great Divide (with Nathaniel Rateliff)
Rag Mama Rag (with Jamey Johnson and Bruce Hornsby)
Baby Don’t You Do It (with Nathaniel Rateliff)
Tupelo Honey (with Van Morrison)
Days Like This (with Van Morrison)
Wonderful Remark (with Van Morrison)
SET 3
The Shape I’m In (with Eric Clapton)
Out Of the Blue (with Eric Clapton)
Forbidden Fruit (with Eric Clapton)
Chest Fever (with Eric Clapton)
Further On Up The Road (with Eric Clapton)
SET 4
Forever Young (with Nathaniel Rateliff, Ryan Bingham and Margo Price)
It Makes No Difference (with Jim James)
Stage Fright (with Warren Haynes)
Caravan (with Warren Haynes)
When I Paint My Masterpiece (with Bob Weir)
The Unfaithful Servant (with Trey Anastasio)
Look Out Cleveland (with Trey Anastasio)
The Weight (Mavis Staples, Trey Anastasio and Bob Weir)
I Shall Be Released (with all-star ensemble)
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