Photo: © Elliott Landy 1969/Magnolia PicturesAn official trailer for the new documentary Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band has debuted online.
The two-and-a-half-minute preview features brief interview snippets with Robertson, Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, The Last Waltz director Martin Scorsese and others while highlighting some key moments in the history of the influential Americana group.
In one segment, Springsteen declares, “There is no band that emphasizes becoming greater than the sum of their parts than The Band. Simply their name, The Band, that was it.”
In clips featuring Robertson, the group’s founding guitarist and main songwriter recalls a memorable trip he took as a teenage musician to the Deep South, and discusses how The Band were booed by Bob Dylan fans when they served as his backing group in the mid-’60s while noting how collaborating with Dylan influenced the original music that The Band went on to make.
“Working with Bob, we saw a door opening,” he notes. “Boom! No rules.”
Robbie also mentions The Band’s move to the famous pink house they rented in the Woodstock, New York, area, where they created a lot of their early songs, while also working with Dylan on The Basement Tapes.
The trailer also touches on how the chemistry of the group soon began to deteriorate as some band members became affected by their issues with drugs.
“Something got broken, and it was like glass,” Robertson says. “It was hard to put back together again.”
He then explains that before breaking up, he and his band mates decided to “come together one last time” at the star-studded farewell concert, The Last Waltz.
Once Were Brothers, which got its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2019, will open in select theaters on February 21.
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