This ‘Last Waltz’ concert is an all-Philly Thanksgiving celebration
And a tribute to concert booker Bryan Dilworth, who died in 2020.
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In 2013, during Thanksgiving weekend, Philadelphia music promoter Bryan Dilworth pulled off a show he considered a highlight of his career.
Dozens of Philadelphia musicians performed the music of The Last Waltz at the Trocadero, with Garth Hudson of The Band as a surprise special guest.
The performance was repeated at Underground Arts in 2018. And now, on Saturday at Franklin Music Hall, the Philly rock community will gather to re-create the San Francisco concert, which featured Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, and Muddy Waters, and more, that Martin Scorsese filmed in 1976.
The show is being staged as a tribute to Dilworth, the first such public memorial to the concert booker and longtime behind-the-scenes force in the Philly music scene who died at age 51 in March 2020, just before the COVID-19 live music shutdown began.
The concert at the Franklin Music Hall — a venue Dilworth booked when it was known as the Electric Factory — is a benefit for former Eagle Connor Barwin’s Make the World Better foundation, which builds playgrounds and recreation facilities around Philadelphia. Dilworth served on the MTWB board.
The show, billed as “A Philadelphia Tribute to the Last Waltz,” is being organized by Dilworth’s wife, Kristin Thomson, along with musician and writer Joey Sweeney; Andrew Lipke, the concert’s music director; and Philadelphia bar owner Fergus Carey, who as the show’s poetry reader, plans to replace Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s part in the film with verses by William Butler Yeats.
Thomson, a music business veteran, was married to Dilworth for 24 years. They met when he booked a band on the label she co-owned, Simple Machine Records, into a Philly club. She’s a guitarist in the Philly bands Ken and Tsunami, her much-loved 1990s band with Jenny Toomey, which is reuniting for a festival show in California next year.
The Philly Last Waltz features an all-star cast of Philly players, with singer and guitarist Lipke anchoring a core band that features Freddie Berman on drums, and a horn section of Hailey Brinnel, Matt Cappy, Jay Davidson, and Sean McCusker.
Special guests include Chelsea Mitchell and Ali Wadsworth, and Jon Houlon and Mike “Slo Mo” Brenner of John Train, who will stand in for Dylan on “Baby Let Me Follow You Down.” Adam Weiner of Low Cut Connie will take on Ronnie Hawkins’ version of Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love?” Maxx Williams will sing Muddy Waters’ “Mannish Boy.”
In an amusing wrinkle, “we have three Neil Diamonds,” Thomson says. On “Dry Your Eyes,” singers Todd Fausnacht, Kevin Bentley, and Kevin Monko will takes turns as Diamond, offering three stages of Neil.
The Saturday show at the Franklin will be teased with an abbreviated Free at Noon performance on Friday at World Cafe Live, to be broadcast on WXPN-FM.
The idea to honor Dilworth with a Last Waltz benefit was first born in 2020, Thomson says. “We wanted to do it at the Factory because of his history and legacy there. It was the room that Bryan booked. And with MTWB involved, we thought we really can pull off something grand.”
» READ MORE: Bryan Dilworth, longtime Philadelphia concert promoter, has died at 51
Working on the Philly Last Waltz “reminds me how hard this work is,” she says, of the concert booking business. “I want to do a really good job because, first of all, it’s the Philly music scene, and all the amazing people who are contributing to this. I want to do right by them, and also by Brian’s memory. And to the music itself.”
Since Dilworth put together the 2013 Philly show, Last Waltz tributes have proliferated as the Scorsese movie of the 1976 concert at Winterland has grown in popularity. A touring version featuring Warren Haynes, Jamey Johnson, Don Was, and Kathleen Edwards played the Met Philly earlier this month.
Barwin is deeply connected with the Philly music scene, with the most recent MTWB summer benefit at the Dell Music Center this July headlined by Japanese Breakfast.
“We have had a lot of supporters and board members,” Barwin said. “But Bryan really, really cared. He always wanted to help, believed in what we were doing, and always wanted to do more, ... and he had the ability to get s— done, which is incredibly valuable. And Kristin is the same way.”
“I remember him [Dilworth] saying that the 2013 show was one of the things he was most proud of,” Lipke says. “And then going over his house for a Super Bowl party and there was a framed poster on the wall. So I know it meant a lot to him. This is going to be a way to celebrate his legacy and provide some closure. And as a way for folks to get together and pour one out for the guy.”
Scorsese’s 1978 movie has become a Thanksgiving staple in part because it plays like a family gathering of old friends sharing what they most treasure with one another. So it will be with the Philly Last Waltz, says Lipke.
A Philadelphia Tribute to the Last Waltz on Saturday, Nov. 26, at 8 p.m. at Franklin Music Hall, 427 N. Seventh St., $29.50, $35 day of show. Tickets for a 6 p.m. meet and greet with open bar and food by Heavy Metal Sausage, Pom Pom, Jose Pistola’s at the Pistola Family, and Federal Donuts are $100. Info at lastwaltzphl.com.