Last night my buddy Buzzard and I made our way to the Edmonton Folk Fest again, this time to see The Levon Helm Band play. Again another night of great weather and music in a beautiful setting in a packed Gallagher Park with a strong aroma of pot in the air. This was my second time seeing Levon in concert, the first time being in 1989 when he was part of Ringo Starr's all-star band.
Levon's set opened with The Band's song Ophelia with Levon singing, while his voice wasn't the greatest, having just been through throat cancer, it was still good to hear him bark out the song, he was looking frail, but can still hold down the beat as the drummer. The opening song was the only one he sang through out, and then only doing background vocals the rest of the night. The hour and a half set was all songs by The Band, which kind of surprised me as I was hoping to hear a few songs from his last two excellent solo albums "Dirt Farmer" and "Electric Dirt" but to no avail. It was nice to see Levon smiling through out the show and acknowledging the crowd and generally having a lot of fun. His back up band was really good too, with everyone switching off with vocal parts. One of his back up singers Theresa Williams was especially good and guitar player Larry Campbell was laying the licks down like Robbie Robertson of The Band. Another highlight was hearing keyboard player Brian Mitchell play The Shape I'm In, the set ended with Levon bring out Australian band The Waifs for the song The Weight. All and all a really enjoyable set. At 70 years old Levon still puts on a good show. I would give this show an 8 out of 10.
Front.
Front.
Back.
Next up... Tomorrow night at The Fest is Alejandro Escovedo and The Sensitive Boys, Jakob Dylan and The Three Legs and closing out the Festival John Prine.
No comments:
Post a Comment