---
product_id: 4795124
title: "- Stage Fright"
brand: "bandthe band"
price: "$60.35"
currency: USD
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 9
url: https://www.desertcart.ec/products/4795124-stage-fright
store_origin: EC
region: Ecuador
---

# - Stage Fright

**Brand:** bandthe band
**Price:** $60.35
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

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- **What is this?** - Stage Fright by bandthe band
- **How much does it cost?** $60.35 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.ec](https://www.desertcart.ec/products/4795124-stage-fright)

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- bandthe band enthusiasts

## Why This Product

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## Description

Product description          Digitally remastered! Reissued with 4 rare BONUS tracks and liner notes.             .com          The Band's third studio album is also their third-best studio album, and that isn't bad. It's not as synchronous as Music from Big Pink or as overpowering as The Band, but that's part of its appeal. The quintet's first two albums were such towering achievements that the group came to lean on its songs, turning the lion's share of them into concert staples. Stage Fright is littered with lesser-known Robbie Robertson compositions possessing more modest charms than the overplayed likes of "The Weight" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." The title track is uncommonly hard-eyed and modern; Richard Manuel's vocal, like most of his turns at the mic, is sparkling. (Manuel also shines on the reflective "Sleeping" and the uptempo "Just Another Whistle Stop"). "All La Glory" is a gorgeous lullaby, while "Time to Kill" sounds like the Band doing Creedence Clearwater Revival. This isn't the place to discover this great North American band, but it's definitely a stop worth taking before your exploration is completed. --Steven Stolder

## Images

![- Stage Fright - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61ALf6BpKIS.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Robertson vs. Manuel in a life and death struggle
  

*by J***R on Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2003*

The conventional wisdom is right:  Pound for pound, "Big Pink" and "The Band" are more complete successes for this group, and I love them both. But I love "Stage Fright" more.  It is the album where this group drops its masks and speaks directly to the audience about themselves and each other.The Band is really two duos:  Helm and Danko, who are usually paired as singers on some of the group's best-loved material, and Robertson and Manuel, who are engaged in a sort of musical and spiritual dialogue that often forms much of the depth, richness and mystery of this group.  That dialogue is the dominant theme of "Stage Fright" in its many evocations of the theme of self-destructiveness, especially the self-destructiveness of a great artist.My theory is, Richard Manuel was the artistic soul of the The Band. He was their best singer, by far. His "feel" approach to playing the many instruments he played, especially piano, gave the Band a funky, soulful "bottom" that contrasted with the highly intellectual approaches of both Robertson and Hudson.  Manuel was responsible, on their first three albums, for some of their very best songs as writer or co-writer:  "Tears of Rage," "In A Station," "Lonesome Suzie," "Whispering Pines," "Across the Great Divide," and, on this album, "Sleeping" and "The Shape I'm In" were at least partly his.  But...Richard Manuel was not a particularly responsible person.  He was, in fact a drunk, and an unmotivated writer.  He was a sadly vulnerable man, for whom, as Robertson writes in "Sleeping," "the world was too sore to live in."  In some ways, being in the Band destroyed him. At the same time, it created a place for him to hide.Robertson, ever the brilliant control freak, clearly admired and loved Richard Manuel, and was also exasperated with him.  Robertson was basically in charge of the business of The Band, and also the artistic direction of The Band as its most prolific songwriter.  He wanted Manuel to play a bigger role, but eventually saw that he couldn't, or wouldn't.  And so, according to my theory, he wrote songs to reach him when nothing else would work.It is no accident that the leadoff track is "Strawberry Wine," a fun but desperate track in which Levon Helm sings (brilliantly) the part of a drunk who wants to be left alone to "feel good all the time."  This is followed by the album's first masterpiece, "Sleeping," which at first seems to be about life as a musician on the road, but expands into a poem about isolation and hiding.  This song, one of Manuel's most treasured performances, almost seems like a dialogue between the two men, with Robertson acknowledging that perhaps life on the road, in which "to be called by noon, is to be called too soon" is part of the drill if you're performing before crowds of people "searching" for something special every night.  Maybe, Robertson seems to suggest, that's why Richard is such a juicer; it's the road's fault.  But then, the song seems to say, that's not why.  He would be living this way on his own, even if he weren't part of The Band.  Maybe the rock and roll lifestyle isn't killing him; maybe it's really keeping him alive.I won't go through every song, but themes of drunkenness, fear, isolation, and hiding take some form in almost every remaining track.  Even the two songs that have the "old-timey" historic and mythic resonances of their prior albums, "Daniel and the Sacred Harp" and "W.S. Walcott's Medicine Show" are tales full of personal symbolism.  Richard Manuel plays the role of the music-mad Daniel who sells his soul to play the sacred harp, but Levon Helm sings the part of the narrator who becomes horrified at Daniel's fate: "When he looked to the ground, he noticed no shadow did he cast."  Again, this is Robertson assessing the cost of the music career to himself and his bandmates, especially Manuel.  "Walcott" reinterprets the rock and roll touring lifestyle as a 19th century medicine show, in which alcohol-laced snake oil and other mind altering substances are purveyed to the dazzled crowds as the keys to health--which, back in '69 is about right.  Manuel just happened to be the guy who kept sampling the stock.After this album, Manuel had many more wonderful performances ahead of him, but he wrote no more songs.  From the Last Waltz and everything one can read about the Band, he appears to have not taken the bootstrap advice of the singer in "Stage Fright" who "when he gets to the end, wants to start all over again."  He went on, and kept singing because that kept him afloat long enough to get the next drink. He began the long, slow retreat that to the people who knew him best and admired his talent was probably an agonizing spectacle to watch.  I see "Stage Fright" as a collection of songs in which Robbie Robertson alternately rages at, laughs at, cries about, and tries to save, Richard Manuel--and in which Richard Manuel finally escapes Robertson's tender mercies.  And, as great as the first two Band albums might have been, they don't have this kind of intimacy and depth.  This album is hardly the coda or afterthought to a classic period--it may be its culmination.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    It arrived before its arrival date
  

*by D***S on Reviewed in the United States on November 3, 2022*

I love it because it is Like New!

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Worth buying if you only know the radio songs
  

*by J***  on Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2015*

While the Band's first two albums, Music From Big Pink and The Band respectively, have always received the critical acclaim and have the songs you always hear, Stage Fright is just as impressive. I love all of these albums but when I want my Band fix, I turn to Stage Fright most often. Robbie Robertson wrote or co-wrote another strong set of songs and here the lyrics are more personal while the arrangements are less cerebral. However, the tracklist is arranged so it is easier to digest. The most popular tracks are "The Shape I'm In" and the title track, both featured in The Last Waltz, and are quite upbeat musically even if they're somewhat dire lyrically. The diversity that is the Band continues to impress whether it's on a gentle ballad like "All La Glory", a gritty rocker like "Strawberry Wine", or an old time story telling song such as "Daniel and the Sacred Harp". As evidenced in other reviews, by this point it was more the Robbie Robertson show as Richard Manuel was barely writing but he still leaves his stamp with the ballad "Sleeping", the more upbeat "Just Another Whistle Stop," and the aforementioned "The Shape I'm In". A bit underrated but just as great, Stage Fright is worth picking up if you only know the Band for the radio songs.

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*Product available on Desertcart Ecuador*
*Store origin: EC*
*Last updated: 2026-04-01*