Some of the most illustrious names in rock — and other genres — will pay tribute to Robbie Robertson in a celebratory concert at the L.A.-area Kia Forum on Oct. 17, with the musician’s longtime friend and collaborator Martin Scorsese among the executive producers.
The lineup for “Life Is a Carnival: A Musical Celebration of Robbie Robertson” includes some contemporaries who came up with the Band‘s late songwriter-guitarist in the ’60s. These include Bobby Weir, Taj Mahal and three artists who appeared with Robertson in the Scorsese-directed 1986 concert documentary “The Last Waltz”: Eric Clapton, Van Morrison and Mavis Staples.
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It also includes some musical figures whose stars have risen in the last 15 years or so, like Eric Church, Allison Russell, Nathaniel Rateliff, Margo Price and — a current mainstay of the Billboard album chart’s top 10 — Noah Kahan.
Mostly, though, the roster is full of veteran stars who came up in the generation or two after Robertson and were distinctly influenced by the Band. The list of talent further includes Elvis Costello, Lucinda Williams, Trey Anastasio, Daniel Lanois, Jim James, Warren Haynes, Bruce Hornsby, Don Was, Robert Randolph, Ryan Bingham, and Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench of the Heartbreakers.
A general on-sale for tickets begins Friday at 10 a.m. PT on Ticketmaster. A presale for Citi card holders runs Tuesday through Thursday of this week.
The show is being produced by Blackbird Presents, which has been responsible for a lot of top tribute shows in recent years, and promoted by Live Nation. Blackbird Presents and Live Nation are also currently teaming up for the Willie Nelson/Bob Dylan-led Outlaw Music Festival tour, and were responsible for the Nelson 90th birthday tribute shows at the Hollywood Bowl last year that were filmed for a theatrical and streaming release.
Scorsese’s association with Robertson dates back to his directing the Band’s concert film “The Last Waltz” in 1976 and subsequently enlisting him as scorer or music supervisor on projects from “The King of Comedy” to last year’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.” The filmmaker is joined as an executive producer by Jared Levine, Keith Wortman and Scooter Weintraub.
Robertson died on August 9, 2023 at age 80, after completing work on “Killers of the Flower Moon” but prior to the film’s release. His work on that film earned him posthumous nominations for best original score by the Oscars, Golden Globes and BAFTA.
The concert promises to include work from Robertson’s solo career, which began in 1987, as well as selections from the Band’s recordings, which ran from 1968’s “Music From Big Pink” through 1977’s “Islands.” (The other members of the Band subsequently regrouped without him in the 1990s.)
Classic Robertson compositions that attendees might expect to hear covered in the Forum tribute include “The Weight,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Up on Cripple Creek,” “Ophelia” and “The Shape I’m In.”
More information about the tribute concert can be found here.
