Eric Clapton and Van Morrison are among the classic rock heavyweights who will pay tribute to the late Robbie Robertson at a star-studded tribute concert scheduled for Oct. 17 at the Kia Forum in Inglewood.
The show, titled “Life Is a Carnival: A Musical Celebration of Robbie Robertson,” will also feature Bob Weir, Elvis Costello, Trey Anastasio, Mavis Staples, Eric Church, Noah Kahan, Mike Campbell, Warren Haynes, Bruce Hornsby, Taj Mahal and Margo Price, organizers announced Tuesday. Lucinda Williams, Ryan Bingham, Jim James, Jamey Johnson, Daniel Lanois, Robert Randolph, Nathaniel Rateliff, Allison Russell, Benmont Tench and Don Was also will appear.
Robertson, a hugely influential singer, guitarist, songwriter and composer (and a founding member of the Band), died last August at age 80, shortly after completing his final work: the Oscar-nominated score for Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” for which he drew on his heritage as the son of a mother raised on the Six Nations Reservation near Toronto. Scorsese, who documented the Band’s famous farewell concert in 1978’s “The Last Waltz,” hosted a private tribute to Robertson in November at the Village Studios in West Los Angeles and is credited as executive producer of the October event.
Produced by Blackbird Presents, which also organized Willie Nelson's two-night 90th birthday concert last year at the Hollywood Bowl, the Forum show will take place 50 years after the band wrapped its historic tour with Bob Dylan at Inglewood Stadium in 1974.
Tickets go on sale Friday and a portion of the proceeds will go to Canada’s Woodland Cultural Centre, which “serves to preserve, promote and strengthen Indigenous language, culture, art and history,” according to the organization.
