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The Last Waltz (1978)
It doesn't get much better than this.
The first time I saw "The Last Waltz", I was about fourteen, and my best friend and I had just started our own little garage band. My mum was watching "The Last Waltz" on A&E, as I recall, and she made us watch it with her, saying, "OK, you kids want to be musicians, then you need to see this!" We had no idea who any of these performers were...hell, to us Bob Dylan at that time was just the guy who'd smoked up The Beatles! Well, I was impressed then, even though it took me about another ten years or so to get into The Band, Dylan, Neil Young, etc (all of whom are among my favourite artists today.) "The Last Waltz" is, of course, Martin Scorsese's documentary of The Band's final concert, at Winterland in San Fran, on Thanksgiving 1976. After sixteen years of being on the road, with all the hard living and extra baggage that that entails, they'd decided to pack it in (or at least Robbie Robertson had, as history has shown.) And they decided to go out with a bang, inviting practically all of their musical associates to join them: Dylan, Young, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Ronnie Hawkins (who had, after all, given them their first big break years and years before), Van Morrison, Muddy Waters and even Neil Diamond, to name a few. Probably the greatest pre-Live Aid gathering ever on one stage. So you can be guaranteed that music will be top notch; aside from The Band's own classics ("The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"; "The Shape I'm In"; "Ophelia"; "It Makes No Difference"...even a new studio-shot version of "The Weight" featuring The Staples Singers) you get Dylan doing "Forever Young", Neil Young's "Helpless", Joni Mitchell's "Coyote", Van The Man's "Caravan"...a veritable 70's California rock wet dream.
Ah yes...the seventies...as timeless as the majority of the music performed at "The Last Waltz" is, practically everything else about it just screams 1976. Especially the costumes: lots of bellbottoms, butterfly collars and plaid on display. Richard Manuel, The Band's pianist (R.I.P.), and Don Cherry must have the same tailor, what with their taste for tacky suits. Along with the 70's clothes is the 70's cocaine, with which this concert just reeks of (I practically get a coke buzz just watching it, and I detest cocaine!). Apparently Scorsese and Robertson spent quite a bit of their own money just to rotoscope a big chunk of blow hanging from Neil Young's nose. To their credit, as high as EVERYBODY involved seems to be, the performances are great (even if, according to Levon Helm, The Band's drummer, a lot of post-production overdubs took place...I've heard the bootleg of the actual concert and you really can't tell.) For what makes "The Last Waltz" so special is how well The Band meshed and their onstage interaction. Here were five guys who were utterly simpatico with one another musically...if there is a such thing as musical mindreading, these guys could do it (which explains how they could back up Bob Dylan so well). In my opinion, the only other band that comes close to this kind of interaction is Led Zeppelin...and arguably The Band pulled it off better. The sum indeed made up more than the parts, which makes the Helm-led 80's "reunions" such a letdown.
Having said that, the biggest drawback to "The Last Waltz" is how it is more or less presented as The Robbie Robertson Show. Sure, Robbie's a hell of a songwriter and guitarist, but it cracks me up to no end watching him sing into that unplugged microphone ('cos the man can't really sing...at least not compared to Manuel, Helm or Rick Danko, whose performance of "It Makes No Difference" is, for me, the song of the night). Robertson gets the most camera time, both onstage and during the interviews, though the other four guys have their share of insights as well during Scorsese's interviews (even if Danko is stoned silly and Manuel is hammered.) Still, "The Last Waltz" is Robbie's trip just like "Let It Be" is Paul McCartney's show.
Still, all told, "The Last Waltz" -and The Band in general- is really musician's music, and deservedly so. Heh heh...one of my exes, who is not musically minded, watched "The Last Waltz" with me once and couldn't understand all the fuss (she complained a lot of the music was "too slow".) "Are you nuts?!" I said...we broke up not long after, actually. I still make it a point to watch this film at least four or five times a year, and always ask myself, "What the hell has happened to popular music since then?"...my musical era, with only a handful of exceptions, ends at about 1980...I have no tolerance for nowadays greed-motivated pop CRAP. Artists like The Band epitomize artistic integrity, which seems to be as dead as John Lennon these days.
By the way...the fact that "The Last Waltz" was directed by Martin Scorsese, probably the greatest filmmaker of modern times, is just a great big bonus! Marty's got impeccable taste in music...I'd love to check out his record collection.
Neil Young: Heart of Gold (2006)
Search no more!
It is ironic that this film is named after the song Neil Young said "put me in the middle of the road; travelling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch." For say what you will about Young's music -be it the "Harvest" style folk/country rock or the "Ragged Glory" grunge- arguably it will be his "Heart Of Gold" material he will always be remembered for (whether you like it or not, Neil!) So what we have here is a great concert film of a one off performance in Nashville, 2005, shortly after Young was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm, from which he -thank god- survived. Of course, it's no big secret that Neil Young is a survivor anyway...he's refused to rust or fade away ever since he first made it big with Buffalo Springfield. In Nashville, along with a lot of old friends and musical colleagues (pointedly, neither CSN nor Crazy Horse were invited), Neil performs most of his remarkable "Prairie Wind" album (easily "Harvest Part 3", following the original and "Harvest Moon") as well as a smattering of crowd-pleasing favourites ("Old Man", "Comes A Time", and of course the tune that drove him to the ditch, "Heart Of Gold") in the same countryish vein. As easygoing as this music is, Young is playing as though his life depended on it- literally.
(I'm digressing, sort of, but it would have been fitting if Neil had have been taken from us following "Prairie Wind", one of his finest albums. Much more so than, say, he went tomorrow with "Living With War" -easily his most dated album, for a man whose music is basically timeless- as his final musical statement..."Prairie Wind" makes a much better epitaph than "Let's Impeach The President"!)
Admittedly, Neil Young's music tends to be an acquired taste (mostly due to his voice and/or guitar playing) but man! What an artist! No wonder Neil Young and Bob Dylan are considered the singer/songwriter kings...a fitting sequel to this film would be something like "The Neil and Bob Show"...what a concert that would be! Though admittedly, as far as Neil's music goes, I prefer his electric stuff, but "Heart Of Gold" is a must-see for ANY of his fans...and any sort of roots music fan at all. Neil Young is one of the few things left that truly makes me proud to be Canadian.
The Song Remains the Same (1976)
Not Zeppelin at their best, but hardly their worst, either...
"The Song Remains The Same" seems to get a long of undue praise...mainly from Zeppelin fans who should really know better. True, for years -decades, really- it was the only real visual artifact of LZ's incredible twelve year reign, but you have to keep in mind that even the band practically disowned the project, and regarded it, at best, as a make-work kind of thing after Robert Plant's 1975 car smash that forced them off the road for two years. So "The Song Remains The Same" was as close to an actual Led Zeppelin concert as people were going to get, for the time being.
Having said that, the film is really more of an approximation of the Led Zeppelin concert experience (and, for what it's worth, in my not-so-humble opinion, they were the best live band in the business, and, from a musical standpoint, probably the best BAND of all time...I mean, the Beatles and Stones are great, but you can hardly call them bands, in any real sense...look at the Stones; Mick and Keith still treat Ron Wood like a sideman even after thirty years!). I say "approximation" because, as with any sort of "concert" project, "TSRTS" has its share of overdubs and re-takes. If you care, see the "Garden Tapes" website to find out exactly what kind of post-production Jimmy Page carried out on the film (and soundtrack album).
As for the performance, as a bit of a live Zeppelin connoisseur, I can honestly say, considering "TSRTS" comes from the end of the '73 tour, that it indeed sounds like the end of the tour. They're tired (stimulants or not), Robert Plant is not in the best of voice (hence the overdubs) and, considering Page was just beginning to dabble in heroin, he is a bit sloppy (to their credit, John Paul Jones and John Bonham, however, rarely EVER seemed to disappoint onstage.) And the songs! For a band that seemed to epitomize the term "self-indulgent", some of these renditions are very tedious to sit through. I mean, c'mon, Jimmy...do we really need half an hour of "Dazed And Confused"? Mind you, the '73 tour was not as bad as, say, the '77 tour (where both "No Quarter" and "Moby Dick" tended to push the half hour mark most every night!) but at the same time the fans couldn't say they weren't getting value for their money. Understand: a garden variety Led Zeppelin concert was the exact opposite of The Beatles being on and off the stage in less time than it takes to actually watch the "Dazed And Confused" performance on "TSRTS". Anything less than three hours was practically unheard of (until the 'back to basics' 1980 European tour...Zeppelin's last, sadly.) And the "fantasy sequences"! I think "TSRTS" gets a lot of its sardonic chuckles from detractors not because of Zeppelin's stage costumes, but because of these sequences, all of which are completely unnecessary and, for me, at least, definitely take away from the "concert experience". If they had followed Pink Floyd's example and had them playing on a back projector whilst performing the songs, that would be one thing, but in the film they are just ridiculous...even John Bonham's "Gentleman Farmer" bit. Though it is mildly amusing to watch Peter Grant and Richard Cole -Zeppelin's management- acting out their perceived personas at the start of the film...the first time you see it.
All told, I'd say skip "The Song Remains The Same" and pick up Zeppelin's 2 "DVD" set, which was clearly the labour of love for Jimmy Page that this film was not. Better performances too. "The Song Remains The Same" should be considered "for die-hards only", but I'm sure even the die hards know better...
Let It Be (1970)
Let it all hang out
As far as "Rockumentaries" go, "Let It Be" is one of the finest. For Beatles fans, it is a fascinating (if very watered-down) document of the making of the "Let It Be" album. Of course, I'm sure most Beatles fans are well aware of what went on whilst making this album (Lennon's minimal involvement due to his addictions to heroin and Yoko Ono; McCartney's domination, not only in the songwriting department but also in regards to group leadership; Harrison's disenchantment and Ringo's melancholy boredom) so when watching the film you will not see The Beatles at their best. Far from it. In fact, if not for those nasty contractual obligations, likely both the album and film never would have seen the light of day.
Yet "Let It Be" is a rewarding viewing experience- if for no other reason but the grand finale: the legendary "Rooftop Concert" (and it was held on the roof of Apple Studios, folks, not Abbey Road!) It is amazing that, as lousy as the Fab Four were playing, both at Twickenham and later at Apple Studios, that they managed to pull off such a kick ass performance on the roof, despite the freezing temperatures. Indeed, particularly on "Get Back", "I've Got A Feeling" and "One After 909", the Beatles rock out just as good as the Stones (arguably the Stones always did rock a bit harder than the Beatles.) Even John Lennon seems to be putting effort into the performance! My personal favourite part of the film, however, is the extended rock and roll medley they perform, along with Billy Preston, in the Apple Studios. Aside from the rooftop, it seems to be the only time throughout the entire project that the Beatles performed with anything close to their hearts being in it. Indeed, they simply let it all hang hang out as they run through "You Really Got A Hold On Me", "Shake Rattle and Roll", "Kansas City", "Miss Ann" and "Lawdy Miss Clawdy".
(I do have to give my head a shake at Linda McCartney bringing her daughter Heather to this session, however...a rock and roll recording session is NO PLACE to bring a child, what with the attendant drug taking, swearing and looning about...poor Heather must have been scarred for life!) In short, "Let It Be" is really worth it for the second half of the film. The first half- the Twickenham rehearsals, which drove George Harrison to temporarily leave the band- will only leave you wonder, "Why were they even bothering?" because they sound horrible and as unlike the Beatles as you can get. Having said that, if you're expecting music along the lines of the official "Let It Be" album -i.e. the Spector production- you won't find it here. Anyone who has heard the original "Get Back" album (bootleg) will find the music comparable.
And definitely check out the book "Get Back: The Beatles 'Let It Be' Disaster"...you'll never be able to see or hear any of the "Let It Be" material the same way again.