Album Review: The Weight Band - World Gone Mad
Imagine if a latter-day member of the Band (Robbie Robertson stand-in Jim Weider) teamed with former associates of Levon Helm (keyboardist Brian Mitchell) and Rick Danko (keys-and-sax man Marty Grebb) and a rhythm section, drummer Michael Bram and bassist Albert Rogers, named themselves the Weight Band and released an album full of songs on which they imitate Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan’s former backing group.
Scratch that; it already happened.
And the resulting World Gone Mad is about what you’d expect, a record full of retreads like “Fire in the Hole,” “Big Legged Sadie” and “Heat of the Moment,” that find the Weight Band musicians tugging at strings of the Band’s music and winding up with frayed strands of fluff, as the vocalists attempt to imitate Helm and Danko; thankfully, they’re too wise to try to ape Richard Manuel.
Meanwhile, “I Wish You Were Here Tonight” and “You’re Never too Old (To Rock and ‘N Roll)” are as clichéd as their titles suggest.
Jackie Greene appears on a musically unrecognizable remake of the Grateful Dead’s “Deal” and there’s a live version of the Weider-era Band track “Remedy.” But instead of providing highlights, these numbers only serve to illuminate the album’s - and the (lower-case) band’s - shortcomings.
Grade card: The Weight Band - World Gone Mad - D-
3/21/18
