I Can See You - by Paddy Summerfield c. 1986

Saturday, August 30, 2025

The Band 'The Last Waltz' final tour 1976 (sic) | so many roads

The Band - 1976-08-29 - Lennox, MA (SBD)

The Band
1976-08-29
Music Inn
Lennox, MA
Soundboard Recording


01. Intro
02. Ring Your Bell
03. Shape I’m In
04. The Weight
05. Makes No Difference
06. King Harvest
07. Ophelia
08. Stage Fright
09. Night They Drove Old Dixie Down > Across The Great Divide
10. Twilight
11. Up On Cripple Creek
12. Genetic Method
13. Chest Fever
14. Life Is A Carnival
15. Forbidden Fruit
16. Wheels On Fire
17. W S Walcott Medicine Show


Speedy says: The links between Jerry Garcia, as a member of the Grateful Dead, and The Band stretched across 4 decades. The Band & The Grateful Dead played at two of the most famous rock festivals in history, Woodstock in August 1969 and Watkins Glen in July 1973. The two bands also played on the same bill at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City on July 31 and August 1. Three years earlier, in the summer of 1970, The Dead and The Band, along with Janis Joplin and Delaney & Bonnie & Friends, participated in the Festival Express, a train tour across Canada that was detailed in a 2003 documentary film. In the 1990’s, Rick Danko of The Band sat in with The Dead during their 3rd set on December 31, 1983, while all the members of The Band joined the Dead for the encore on June 21, 1984. The Dead added The Band tune The Weight to their set lists in the 1990s, often playing the song as an encore. After they reformed in 1983, sans Robbie Robertson, The Band served as the lead-in band for the Grateful Dead on about a half dozen occasions, including what turned out to be the Dead’s final show on July 9, 1995 at Soldier Field in Chicago, just a month before Jerry Garcia’s death. 

Today's post takes us back to 1976, when Robbie Robertson of The Band had grown tired of the grind of touring. He urged the group to retire from the road, and conceived the idea of a massive, star studded, retirement concert to be held on Thanksgiving Day, November 25 1976 at Winterland in San Francisco. Along the way to the Last Waltz, however, The Band embarked on one final tour, giving their fans across the country a last chance to see the classic line up of Robertson, Rich Danko, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson and Levon Helm. This soundboard recording captures The Band during that tour, in Lenox on August 29, 1976, 49 years ago today 




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