Robbie Robertson Tribute Highlighted by Eric Clapton and Other Stars

Here’s who wasn’t taking a load off: the house band at Thursday’s tribute to Robbie Robertson at the L.A. area’s Kia Forum. Starting a little after 7 and ending at midnight, the all-star show dubbed “Life Is a Carnival: A Musical Celebration of Robbie Robertson” clocked in at just a little under five hours, which had to have been more taxing for the Don Was-led players than it was for the audience in Inglewood. This epic length came even without a single retake being done for the cameras — Martin Scorsese was directing the collection of footage — and with three intermissions turning out to be surprisingly brief. It was epic, but it was a weight the happy, unbothered audience bore lightly.

What the Band-loving crowd got was a show with 37 numbers sung by about 20 brand-name artists, alone or in combination, each getting anywhere from one to three songs apiece. The except to that was a five-song set by Eric Clapton, with his own touring band stepping in for the house band, which finally got to take five near the top of the final hour. Van Morrison was the other veteran afforded the luxury of being able to headline three songs in a row without interruption, mid-show. There was no hubris involved in making these allowances for Clapton and Morrison to get so much concentrated real estate during the evening; these Robertson buddies more than re-earned the privilege of towering over the homage.

Others getting their spotlight moments during the arguably all-killer, no-filler show included Mavis Staples and Trey Anastasio (pictured together, above), and Eric Church, Nathaniel Rateliff, Jim James, Bobby Weir, Lucinda Williams, Taj Mahal, Allison Russell, Warren Haynes, Robert Randolph and Daniel Lanois. Several musicians who stepped up to the mic for lead vocals as well as serving in the house band: Jamey Johnson, Bruce Hornsby, Mike Campbell and Ryan Bingham. (Initially advertised but not present: Noah Kahan, who exited the bill in time to be left off the posters and T-shirts, and Elvis Costello, who, still included on those souvenirs, was apparently marked absent closer to showtime.) Benmont Tench and Shannon McNally also took prominent roles in the battalion of players, which extended to an oft-employed five-man horn section.

Martin Scorsese was initially announced as an executive producer alongside Blackbird Presents‘ Keith Wortman, Scooter Weintraub and Jared Levine, but it was only announced two days prior to the concert that he would be directing the filming of the show — in a mirroring of his direction of “The Last Waltz” back in 1976. This led some who were experiencing some FOMO over missing out on attending to imagine they will get to see all or most of the show eventually in theaters or on home video. But that assumption was probably made before most people knew the length of the show… plus, Scorsese is not going to put a capper on his best friend’s life and career without including documentary footage in the final piece. So, expect to see a healthy amount of show excerpts somewhere down the line.

Asked by Variety before the show if there was a plan in place for what would happen with the footage, Wortman said, “Not yet. Tonight’s about the concert that really celebrates Robbie, and we’re shooting it, capturing it, and then we take our time to make the movie. You know, no rush — we really want to make a movie that stands the test of time.” Added Weintraub, “It’ll reach beyond being a concert film.”

“We knew Marty wanted to be involved on a number of different levels, and so the question was, did he want to also direct it? And after he thought about it for a minute, he said, ‘I’m not gonna have anyone else direct it,’” Weintraub said.

But the producers singled someone else out as a key trigger for making the show happen. “We had such deep love and affection and history with Robbie that, within a couple weeks after he had passed” — in August 2023 — “this conversation began around: What do we do? We have to do something special. So it started from there. I should say that Eric was in early and helped us kind of kick it off. Right. He felt very strongly about doing something, as well, and he reached out. And frankly, once Eric said, ‘I want to do something,’ it all kind of came together around him and, in fact, the timing around when he would be stateside. We said we can’t do it without him, given their relationship.”

Even without there being any on-stage discussion of Clapton’s key role in the proceedings, his five-song set was a highlight for many on hand, beginning with a rollicking “The Shape I’m In” and continuing through three more choice Band covers (“Out of the Blue,” “Chest Fever” and “Forbidden Fruit”) before wrapping up with “Further On Up the Road.” Although it can be annoying when attendees even in the front section are looking up at the big screens instead of at the guy in front of them, it can be forgiven in a mini-set like this, given the enrapturing closeups of his fingerwork. Clapton didn’t speak at any length about Robertson but was seen at length in a documentary prelude segment talking, seemingly in earnest, about how he quit Cream and went to hang out at Big Pink in hopes of being asked to join the Band, although he didn’t have the nerve to actually ask — because he fervently believed that Robertson’s nascent group was already the culmination of everything that rock should be.

Van Morrison was the night’s other Biggest Star on Hand, and a rarity as an actual veteran of the San Francisco “Last Waltz” concert as well as film. He not only did not speak about Robertson, he didn’t do any of his songs, either, only his own. (This isn’t atypical for the biggest stars at tribute shows; at Jimmy Buffett’s recent memorial concert, the Eagles and Paul McCartney performed their own tunes, too.) But the audience was hardly unhappy to get a “Tupelo Honey” and a “Days Like This” from a Morrison who was in good voice, and in good sax. There was a clearer point of connection when he closed out his appearance with the excellent “Wonderful Remark,” a horn-section-fueled song of his that Robertson had produced and played guitar on for the “King of Comedy” soundtrack four decades ago.

Oddly, that was not the full extent of the Morrison songs during the evening, because there was one more: “Caravan,” which the artist sang for “The Last Waltz”… but not for this evening. It was covered by Warren Haynes, who told Variety backstage what happened. “They asked me to sing ‘Caravan’ because they said ‘Van’s not gonna do it — but he still wants someone to do it.’ I did it in the ‘Last Waltz’ tour (a recurring outing in which some of these artists cover Band songs), and it was like, ‘Well, I don’t really feel comfortable with that, with him being here.’ But they assured me he wants somebody else to do it. So, OK!” That was added to the two Band songs Haynes was already singing lead on, “Stage Fright” and “Life Is a Carnival.”

But these Morrison tunes were not the only non-Robbie songs to make their way into the performance. Robertson’s association with Bob Dylan allowed for Weir to cover “When I Paint My Masterpiece,” the one true solo number of the night, with the Grateful Dead frontman unaccompanied by anything other than his own guitar. Rateliff did “Forever Young,” which was performed by Dylan with the Band on the ’74 tour currently being commemorated in a massive live boxed set. And Campbell, reunited with keyboard great Tench after seven years of no Heartbreakers, did Tom Petty’s “The Best of Everything,” which Robertson finished and re-produced for the “Southern Accents” album in something close to his own warm and fulsome style.

Rateliff was pleased to be doing four songs at various points in the show. Besides “Forever Young,” he also had Marvin Gaye’s “Baby Don’t You Do It” and two Robertson originals. “‘Across the Great Divide’ is the start to one of the best records ever made,” he said backstage, referring to the Band’s 1969 self-titled album, “and then I’m doing the song-sketch/demo version of ‘Twilight,’ which has always been a deep-cut favorite of mine. That was a request in the family for me to do that, that particular version. They all have a lot of meaning to me.” (Rateliff was getting a test run in the Forum for his own headlining show coming up there Feb. 21, which was only announced Friday.)

Margo Price joined Rateliff for a couple of those numbers, after playfully posing with him on the red carpet. She also had a solo number, with “Evangeline.” “It’s a song that I’ve been covering for a bit now,” she said backstage, “I heard Emmylou Harris doing it back in the day, and her interpretation of that song was my favorite moment of ‘The Last Waltz.’ … Robbie’s songwriting has just been massively influential on me, for how it blended roots-music country with rock ‘n’ roll. It was an incredible blueprint to follow and I feel really honored I get to carry on this tradition.”

Anastasio, of Phish fame, said he was thrilled to get to be singing “Unfaithful Servant,” “Look Out Cleveland” and “The Weight,” that last one shared with Mavis Staples, who performed it in the movie. “All three are incredible, and ‘Unfaithful Servant’ is a masterpiece that I think really shows off Robbie’s talents. I mean, not that everything else tonight doesn’t, but it’s not one of the more well-known of his songs, I would say, even if I guess a fan might disagree with me. But it’s a great honor to be able to sing that tonight; I think I’m extra excited about singing that one.”

Anastasio added that he “grew up with all this music. You know, my parents were pretty young, so this is what was on in the living room, and it feels like playing the foundation of all music or something like that. Especially for my style of music, it’s ground zero.”

The setlist was easily dominated by Band songs, nearly to the exclusion of Robertson’s solo career, but there were exceptions. A couple of artists spoke backstage to how they were covering songs that they had worked on with the honoree for his post-Band albums. Sacred steel king Randolph pointed out that his selection “Straight Down a Line” was something he worked on with Robertson in 2003. (They subsequently performed it together on Jimmy Fallon’s show, with the Roots.) He had run into Robertson again six months before his death, when they were both working at the Village studio in West L.A.

And Daniel Lanois, who produced Robertson’s first solo album, was resurrecting one of the better remembered tunes from that record, “Broken Arrow,” in a very different, hauntingly beautiful arrangement. “It’s a song that’s very dear to me,” Lanois said before the show, “and brings up a lot of memories of us huddled up in the little studio at the Village, working up these arrangements. It was a great honor for a Canadian kid, because as a guitar player, Robbie was always a hero for me. And so there I was working with one of my heroes, and we had a nice exchange because he loves imaginative thinking. The wildest idea, he would really accept…

“So here we are tonight,” Lanois continued. “We can’t stop the clock and we lost Robbie, but tonight I’m gonna sing the song for Robbie, rather than just a rendition of what Robbie wrote the song about. I put a little bit of twist in the arrangement and I modified some of the lyrics to suggest that we’re still hearing him and he’s still a trailblazer as he always was, but up there rather than down here.”

Allison Russell was proud to join Lanois in being one of the few actual Canadians on the bill. She had brought in some friends associated with the Six Nations Reserve in Canada, where Robertson was partly raised by his native mother. This had not been the plan until two days before. “About 48 hours ago, I got a call saying that the artist I was initially scheduled to collaborate with couldn’t make it,” Russell said backstage. “And I had actually been trying to get Julian (Taylor) and Logan (Staats) and our friend William Prince on this show for a long time, because I felt it was so important to have indigenous representation. Robbie and Logan are from the same region, Six Nations, and I really wanted to make sure that that was part of this tribute to him. So when I got 48 hours notice that there was an opportunity, I was given the OK, and I called Julian and Logan and they dropped everything and showed up for Robbie. We’re so honored to be here, singing ‘Acadian Driftwood,’ for Canadian representation on the show.”

Forty-eight hours later for Russell and company, and just four days after the house band launched into rehearsals, the show came off flawlessly, from all appearances, with 37 individual performances, the end of each one leading a viewer to quietly think: That was a wonderful remark.

Set 1
“Peyote Healing” – Verdell Primeaux
“Up on Cripple Creek” – Eric Church
“Ophelia” – Ryan Bingham
“The Best of Everything” – Mike Campbell
“Evangeline” – Margo Price
“Acadian Driftwood” – Allison Russell, Julian Taylor and Logan Staats
“Straight Down the Line” – Robert Randolph
“Who Do You Love” – Taj Mahal
“Down South in New Orleans” – Dave Malone and Cyril Neville
“Go Back to Your Woods” – Bruce Hornsby
“King Harvest” – Bruce Hornsby
“The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” – Jamey Johnson

Set 2
“Broken Arrow” – Daniel Lanois
“Life Is a Carnival” – Warren Haynes
“Whispering Pines” – Lucinda Williams
“Twilight” – Nathaniel Rateliff
“Across the Great Divide” – Nathaniel Rateliff
“Rag Mama Rag” – Jamey Johnson
“Don’t Do It” – Nathaniel Rateliff with Margo Price
“Tupelo Honey” – Van Morrison
“Days Like This” – Van Morrison
“Wonderful Remark” – Van Morrison

Set 3
“The Shape I’m In” – Eric Clapton
“Out of the Blue” – Eric Clapton
“Forbidden Fruit” – Eric Clapton
“Chest Fever” – Eric Clapton
“Further on Up the Road” – Eric Clapton

Set 4
“Forever Young” – Ryan Bingham
“It Makes No Difference” – Jim James
“Stage Fright” – Warren Haynes
“Caravan” – Warren Haynes
“When I Paint My Masterpiece” – Bob Weir
“The Unfaithful Servant” – Trey Anastasio
“Look Out Cleveland” – Trey Anastasio
“The Weight” — Mavis Staples with Trey Anastasio and Bob Weir)
“I Shall Be Released” – Jamey Johnson, Jim James, Allison Russell and full company