Just played it front to back. Liked it a lot more than I’d remembered but it’s still my least favorite of their classic stuff. One problem is stacking the two major classics right there at the top. As it goes, the songs just get less memorable. Levon also sounds weirdly off-key on some of it, which was distracting. Some great performances though. Especially on 4% Pantomime (Garth: wow) and Smoke Signal.
Didn't he have some notorious bouts of stage fright? You know, the same stage fright that led the rest of the band to hire a hypnotist to "cure" him from it before their first Winterland gig in 1969, and led him to write a song called "Stage Fright" about it? The guy's 70 years old, does soundtracks for one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, and has nothing to prove anymore at this point, certainly nothing that could prompt him to do something he is absolutely terrified of doing and which wouldn't bring him much money or recognition, and he doesn't need any more of both.
I dont think the hypnotist was there for stage fright. Hed been doing live shows since he was 15 yrs old. hes not doing live shows now that ship has sailed.
The hypnotist was there because Robbie had the flu and a 103 degree fever but he knew how big a deal that gig was so he got hypnotized to make him think he wasn’t sick.
That’s exactly right . The story is recounted in depth in one of my favorite rock books Bill Graham Presents:My Life Inside Rock and Out.He was a French hypnotist dressed like an undertaker . The hypnotist had to hold up a little crystal ball all night to get Robbie through the set. By all accounts it worked, Robbie made it through the set and the crowd loved it. It’s a great tale from a great book.
On the commentary on The Last Waltz Grail Marcus says it was a rotten gig that proves that The Band as a whole was better than the individuals involved. If you took out one element the whole thing collapsed in a heap.
I think they only made it about 45 minutes that night before Robbie had to give up, and the crowd booed as they left the stage. So the reality is it's probably questionable as to whether the hypnotist actually accomplished anything other than giving him some self-confidence. Still, it makes for a great story, and perhaps they never would have made it onstage without that confidence boost. What I was surprised to recently realize is just how few gigs they'd played as The Band before their Woodstock appearance. They did the three Winterland shows, two Fillmore East shows, the Toronto Pop Festival, Mississippi River Festival, and then Woodstock. They were still a baby band at Woodstock, at least as far as the repertoire they were playing.
Robbie in his book says he was still dazed despite the hypnosis, that the light show that was being projected behind them at Winterland made him nauseated (and was really out of line for The Band's music) and that the hypnotist ... his name was Pierre Clement ... signaled him "that's enough" after 45 minutes, which Robbie said was a good thing because his tank was past empty and the fumes were evaporating.
Yeah, at the time Cahoots was a disappointment, but listening to it now it sounds pretty good. Imagine if they'd decided not to release this album at the time and it had resurfaced 30 or 40 years later. I think we'd all have been over the moon to hear The Band again.
Without a doubt, but I think we'd still be able to see it wasn't up to the standards of their first three albums.
Man, I thought this subject woulda been done and dusted back when Robbie's book came out (or at least we tried to) Damned good discussion just the same...some topics never die, it seems.
. This could all be true ( in regards to the posts and comments above) Graham’s book (which is the equivalent of an oral history ) has all participants saying it was a good gig with heavy applause and Robbies book I guess saying it was short.. as with all rock and roll tales the truth lies somewhere in between or as William Burroughs observed “ The past is all fiction .. as no- one after awhile remembers it the same way.”
The online Band history site I mentioned somewhere up thread has some reviews of the show, pretty much everyone was just bitching because they only went 45 minutes (and the reviewers did say that Robbie seemed to be on the planet Twylo). But the next two nights at Winterland Robbie was better, they gave people the requisite amount of music and pretty much according to the reviewers kicked ass.
I believe Levon said in his book, their second show at Winterland was the first time in years they hadn't been booed, suggesting the reception on the first night was not good. (He also mentions Robbie being sick and the hypnosis.)
Dylan just sold his publishing for $300 million. It includes stuff that he owned that he didn’t write. According to the Wall Street Journal, he owned “The Weight.” The noise you hear is Levon screaming “Judas” from the great beyond.
Returning to the scene of the crime, LOL! ... volume 2 of Robbie's autobiography, titled "Insomnia," is scheduled to be released on Nov. 3, 2022.
I'd thought that Vol. 2 was going to cover his career post-Last Waltz through the present day. But a blurb I read suggests it's just going to be about the period of time he spent living/partying with Martin Scorsese in the late '70s. Which would certainly explain the title. And would perhaps expand the book's appeal to include Scorsese fans (although I'd buy it, how many people would buy a book about the second half of Robbie Robertson's career?).