Iconic The Band co-founder celebrated by musicians
Blackbird Presents is thrilled to announce an extraordinary concert celebration honoring the legendary Robbie Robertson. Life Is a Carnival: A Musical Celebration of Robbie Robertson will take place on Thursday, October 17th at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles, featuring once-in-a-lifetime performances with an incredible lineup of superstar artists, including Trey Anastasio, Ryan Bingham, Mike Campbell, Eric Church, Eric Clapton, Elvis Costello, Warren Haynes, Bruce Hornsby, Jim James, Jamey Johnson, Noah Kahan, Daniel Lanois, Taj Mahal, Van Morrison, Margo Price, Robert Randolph, Nathaniel Rateliff, Allison Russell, Mavis Staples, Benmont Tench, Don Was, Bobby Weir and Lucinda Williams.
Tickets for the general public go on sale Friday, August 2nd at 10 am PT via Ticketmaster. Presales start on Tuesday, July 30th at 10 am local time.
Simply put, Robbie Robertson is one of the most important and influential artists of all time. Renowned for his groundbreaking work as a guitarist, songwriter and co-founder of The Band, Robbie is widely regarded as a founding father of the Americana music genre. Robbie’s vast songwriting credits include “The Weight,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” and “Up on Cripple Creek,” among other classics. After The Band‘s 1976 farewell concert “The Last Waltz” was captured on film by Martin Scorsese – which featured guest performances by numerous artists influenced by Robbie and The Band including Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Mavis Staples and Muddy Waters, and in 2019 was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the US National Film Registry for its cultural significance – Robbie formed a lifelong bond with the famed director.
Robbie collaborated as a composer, music supervisor and music producer on numerous acclaimed Scorsese films including “Raging Bull,” “The King of Comedy,” “The Color of Money,” “Casino,” “Gangs of New York,” “The Departed,” “Shutter Island,” “The Wolf of Wall Street,” “Silence,” “The Irishman” and most recently “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which was particularly meaningful to Robbie given his indigenous roots and for which he earned a posthumous Oscar nomination. Robbie, who also achieved great success as a solo artist, is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Canadian Music Hall of Fame and Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, as well as the recipient of Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Grammy’s, the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, and the community of Six Nations, among numerous other honors and awards.
Life Is a Carnival: A Musical Celebration of Robbie Robertson promises to be a night of electrifying performances featuring superstar artists performing a diverse range of Robbie’s most beloved songs, from his iconic solo work to classic tracks from The Band. This not-to-be-missed concert event takes place at The Forum 50 years after this iconic venue served as the final stop on the famed tour of Bob Dylan and The Band, which marked Dylan’s return to touring after an eight-year hiatus and became known as one of the largest and highest-profile tours of the era (with the live performances featuring several Robbie’s hit songs documented in the critically acclaimed record release “Before the Flood”).
Executive producers of Life Is a Carnival: A Musical Celebration of Robbie Robertson are Martin Scorsese, Jared Levine and Keith Wortman. Live Nation serves as the event promoter. A portion of the proceeds from the concert event will be donated to The Woodland Cultural Centre which funds and operates a range of arts, history and education programs on the Sixth Nations Reserve in Canada.