Life Is A Carnival In Toronto. Tribute To The Band Waddles Into The Meridian.

 

Bunch of Americans came to town last night to play music by The Band. They said they knew they were in Toronto, but they didn't act like it. The P.A. was playing Old Folks Boogie by Little Feat when we came in. Accurate. Then a dog walked onstage.

It was a tribute to The Last Waltz, organized by Scorcese to celebrate his buddy Robbie, and they did mention him at the beginning. They mentioned Richard too, when they were introducing a Tom Petty song. They played Georgia, and Mystery Train which became Two Trains by Little Feat (again) and a Springsteen tune. As far as The Band went, no deep cuts. There were very touching audience singalongs on the BIG tunes.

The very fine musicians, fifteen I counted, didn't attempt to sound like the five they were portraying at all. Is Don Was so powerful that no one will tell him that murky subsonic bass was NOT what was called for? To be fair, the sound worked on a few slow ballads like It Makes No Difference and I Shall Be Released, but overall, NOT very robust. And no one mentioned Rick anyways. They had a Hollywood version of him up there singing and a man with an avalanche of white hair singing too. They did okay.

The fine drummer refused to dwell on his snare much. No one mentioned Levon either. Two inaudible acoustic guitars, a hobo Mike Campbell played okay electric, but only three songs with a Telecaster. Real guitar playing was handled by Dave Malone on stage right, where Cyrille Neville would appear from time to time to make the group sound like Little Feat again, who were, I guess, the closest that the U.S. ever got to the sound of The Band. He didn't sing any Band songs at all.

Medeski and Benmont Tench stage left did some great playing all night. But no one mentioned Garth. When they played the title song of the show, Life Is A Carnival, no one made a big deal of it, especially not the rhythm section. Stars of the show were definitely the lady singer and the triumphant horn section who wailed like it was the last night of the tour, which it was. I guess that's okay too.