The Music Beat

Life Is a Carnival: A Musical Celebration of Robbie Robertson

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 a number of Robbie’s hit songs documented in the critically acclaimed record release “Before the Flood”).

Life Is a Carnival: A Musical Celebration of Robbie Robertson will feature 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. 

Executive Producers of Life Is a Carnival: A Musical Celebration of Robbie Robertson are Martin Scorsese, Jared Levine, and Keith Wortman. Live Nation shall serve as event promoter. A portion of the proceeds from the concert event shall be donated to The Woodland Cultural Centre that funds and operates a range of arts, history, and education programs on the Sixth Nations Reserve in Canada.

Foreigner is getting nostalgic ahead of the band’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in October. Fans will get the pleasure of listening to a new 18-song best-of compilation album, along with a brand new song. Founder Mick Jonessaid that there were several songs that he wrote with Lou Gramm back in the day that never got recorded. The new song “Turning Back the Time” was recently revisited and reworked with the inspiration of their upcoming induction. It was originally recorded in 1996, but was never released.

The album will also feature tracks from their nine other studio albums. As for some of the other unheard songs, Jones said, “There are a number of songs that are demos I wrote with Lou. A couple of them are quite promising. Some written with Marti are lying around. I’ve been going through cassette tapes of demos; some I think don’t deserve to see the light of day.” He hopes they will be released “at some point soon.”