Captiol/UMeAn expanded and remastered version of The Band‘s third album, Stage Fright, will be released on February 12, 2021, in commemoration of its recent 50th anniversary, and will be available in multiple formats and configurations.
Released in August 1970, Stage Fright was the influential Canadian-American roots-rock group’s highest-charting studio album, peaking at #5 on the Billboard 200 and featuring such popular tunes as the title track and “The Shape I’m In.”
Among the versions of the 50th anniversary Stage Fright reissue is a Super Deluxe box set featuring two CDs, a 180-gram vinyl LP, a Blu-ray disc, a 7-inch vinyl single and a photo booklet.
The updated version of the album features the songs in the original running order that guitarist/main songwriter Robbie Robertson had originally intended.
The expanded reissue also features alternate mixes of two of the album’s songs, “Strawberry Wine” and “Sleeping,” as well as a previously unreleased impromptu jam session by Band members Robertson, Richard Manuel and Rick Danko recorded in a Calgary, Canada, hotel room during the historic 1970 Festival Express tour.
In addition the deluxe reissue features a previously unreleased concert performance The Band played at London’s famed Royal Albert Hall in June 1971.
The LP features the remastered original album. The Blu-ray contains high-res stereo and surround mixes of Stage Fright, the two alternate mixes and the Royal Albert Hall show. The seven-inch single features “Time to Kill” backed with “The Shape I’m In.”
The reissue also will be released as a two-CD set, digitally, and as a two-LP set available on black vinyl and limited-edition red-and-yellow vinyl. Robertson oversaw the reissue project.
You can pre-order the Stage Fright reissue now.
Here’s the track list of the reissue’s CDs:
CD 1:
Stage Fright (with new running order)
“The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show”
“The Shape I’m In”
“Daniel and the Sacred Harp”
“Stage Fright”
“The Rumor”
“Time to Kill”
“Just Another Whistle Stop”
“All La Glory”
“Strawberry Wine”
“Sleeping”
Bonus Tracks
“Strawberry Wine” (Alternate Mix)*
“Sleeping” (Alternate Mix)*
Calgary Hotel Room Recordings, 1970*
“Get Up Jake (#1)”
“Get Up Jake (#2)”
“The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show”
“Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu”
“Calgary Blues”
“Before You Accuse Me”
“Mojo Hannah”
CD 2: Live at Royal Albert Hall, June 1971*
“The Shape I’m In”
“Time to Kill”
“The Weight”
“King Harvest (Has Surely Come)”
“Strawberry Wine”
“Rockin’ Chair”
“Look Out Cleveland”
“I Shall Be Released”
“Stage Fright”
“Up on Cripple Creek”
“The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show”
“We Can Talk”
“Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever”
“The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”
“Across the Great Divide”
“The Unfaithful Servant”
“Don’t Do It”
“The Genetic Method”
“Chest Fever”
“Rag Mama Rag”
* = previously unreleased.
By Matt Friedlander
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