C/D: The Last Waltz

So, aside from Neil Young's "Helpless" this movie is a GIGANTOR DUD.

Or, how about the part where they talk about "women on the road" and how much they like to get on top of them and how important they are to their great sludgey garbage-country rock AND THEN INTRODUCE JONI MITCHELL. Even I was offended.

So C and D at the same time. Can I pick that?

A few great performances (Helpless, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down) + the sheer volume of starpower at this show + Scorsese's kinetic direction + the majestic decadence of Winterland + a turkey dinner = Thanksgiving Day satisfaction.

When you're trotting out so many guests at your final show, obviously the actual music is going to kind of take a backseat to the spectacle.

that's some pretty good (unintentional(?)) rock criticism there on Scorsese's part

If you don't like Van Morrisson in Last Waltz, you don't like rock or being fucking wasted and fat and and awesome singer.

Manuel is fucking amazingly bonkers the whole time, the song where he plays drums (evangeline, it's one of the "set ups" not live)...he plays like some kinda wierd heroin muppet, he moves his body is such strange ways.....the scene where he's talking about how the name Honkies was "a little too street", i always wished i was an electronic music dude cuz i would sample that and have a song called "a little to street".....

also crewcial: the clapton/robertson guitar showdown where robbie pretty much hands God his fucking lunch until crapton decides "oh dude he's killing me" and actually delivers on his last solo turn....

also as everyone mentioned "don't do it" is so fucking epic...

ronnie hawkins is a goofball, but i still love it when he takes off his waylon cowboy hat and fans off robbie's guitar during the solo to cool things down...watch it robbie you might catch fire.

However, anybody who doesn't think the Band rocks should then watch Festival Express.

no shit they rip it up in fest exprs.

But Derek, I fucking love The Band, and they're like the epitome of a lot you don't like. But great sludgey garbage-country rock? Insert "punk" for "country" and you've got My War.

Deeeeeaaamn!!!!

I can't believe some of the sweeping statements on here. Yes, some of the performances are disappointing, particularly Dylan's, and the pious singalong of I Shall Be Released has none of the Big Pink version's mystery and longing, but as pointed out, it's beautifully shot and has more than its fair share of goodness and entertaining last gasp of the 60s rockistocracy antics (Van's trousers and high kicks, Neil Diamond's totally OTT and awesome turn, Ronnie Hawkin's showmanship, Neil Young's cocaine encrusted nasal hairs).
While Rock Of Ages is the truly great Band live recording, they're still on fine form here. Don't Do It is glorious and Levon is just immense on Dixie. The Joni and Emmylou tunes are lovely but I think the absolute highlight is Muddy Waters. He's just utterly, utterly awesome.
The pointless jam you get as a DVD extra is k-rub though.
Also, the interview segments were a massive influence on Spinal Tap, so even if you're not a fan of the music in the Last Waltz, you can't deny that it spawned one of the greatest comedy films evah!

I love this movie, overdubs and all.

this is on tv right now. every time i see it i like danko more and robbie less. danko, it's like you just wanna find some way to keep him safe. he's so great, but he seems so unequipped for life outside the band.

which i guess is an unfair characterization, because he really had a busy post-band career and all (and was obviously better equipped than richard manuel). but there's just something goofy and endearing and almost innocent about him in the movie, even though he always seems at least half-loaded. and he's so much fun to watch on stage.

There's a Scorsese season coming up in Vienna and they're showing this on the big screen. I am so there.

Am I the only one who thinks that Danko and Robertson were the spittin' images of De Niro and Keitel in Mean Streets?

Marty probably noticed that

I read somewhere that Neil Diamond said "just try and top that" to Dylan as he left the stage, to which Dylan said something like "how, by falling asleep?"

Yeah, I heard that story too, I can't really see Neil Diamond being that arrogant, after all he was about the only one there not coked off his nut

Which reminds me of another story, about a sequence having to be re-edited because Neil Young a huge line of coke-encrusted snot dangling from his nose... allegedly

it's actually just a small crystal hanging off his left nostril, iirc. i remember reading that they tried to fuzz it out, but you can see it if you're looking for it. (and if you're not looking for it, you probably wouldn't notice.) neil's also chewing gum sort of manically through the whole thing in a very cokey fashion. or looks like he's chewing gum, he could be just grinding his teeth. the accounts of the backstage coke room at that show are pretty crazy. wish there was footage of that.

also, this is a pretty nice backstage report.

Levon's bio has a great section on the utter ridiculousness of Neil Diamond's presence at the concert. Basically, Robbie was producing him at the time and got him on the bill.

all this talk of coke-encrusted faces...is that why Dylan wore whiteface on the Rolling Thunder tour?

"His munificence was engorged with snow" - Ginsberg on Dylan during the Rolling Thunder tour

I'll bet it was

i still like this version of "coyote" by joni mitchell better than the one on hejira

Yes on "Coyote"; I was disappointed when I later heard the Hejira version; not that it's not great, but I'd expected something more like the Last Waltz version.

It's corny but I dig Joni's silhouette (and vocals) on "Helpless".

yeah Joni shoulda done a whole album w/ the Band! Kind of shows how good they were that they could slip into that weird Joni Jazzy vibe so easily.

Didn't Robertson and Danko totally flub the changes to "Helpless," which apparently pissed Young off enough to call them out for it later on (thought I read about it in "Shakey")? I don't notice it in the film or on the soundtrack, so I'm assuming the screw-ups were corrected during the overdubs. You can see Robbie and Richard making faces and looking up to the ceiling during the song, as if they were jokingly trying to hide their mistakes.

they go into the chorus early -- i think you would've been able to hear it if you were there, but they mixed it out on the soundtrack ... maybe "Helpless" is just too easy for the Band ...

frankly neil isn't that great on this anyway

Van on the other hand....what a terrible terrible suit but such an amazing performance

i love this film but god seriously robbie is such a douche throughout this whole thing.

it drives me nuts how he always steps up to the mic during choruses and stuff so ppl watching the film will get the incorrect impression that he can actually sing a fuckin' note....so gross the way he's mincing around for scorcese during all the interviews too.....

even worse cuz he hogs all the camera time and he's by far the LEAST interesting member of the band IMO

otm x 5

Yes, Robbie R is a total dick in this

he can play pretty well and he did write some of the Band's best tunes, but yeah, he's pretty unbearable.

robbie r is an amazing guitarist and wrote some great tunes, but he is hilariously lame in this movie. i can't believe his whole "the road has been so tough, we've been on the road so long, etc." comments throughout ... If you look at their schedule post 1966, The Band was not exactly the hardest touring group in the world, by a long shot. also kind of insane that there's not a single Manuel-penned song on The Last Waltz ...

it's funny reading across the great divide, which i like overall even though i think hoskyns is too much of a fanboy about northern lights southern cross which i just don't like that much...but anyway he sort of points to one of the big things in the band's decline after the third album is manuel's decline as a songwriter which put everything on robbie....

i mean obv robbie is a GREAT songwriter but still manuel sometimes seemed to tap into something more magic and intuitive and special to me, whereas robbie is really a great craftsman, and later on it seems like he's straining to write sort of mythic americana stuff that feels more false (this begins on stage fright and gets worse as time goes on)

Yeah, Robertson is a supreme jerk in the film. I gather the "we're tired" lines were referring to their earlier days with Ronnie Hawkins etc. in the early 60s. According to Helm's autobio they played some tough places. But in 1978 it sounded like a lot of bullshit.

"we're tired" (of staying up all night doing coke in L.A. with clapton and scorcese)

xpost yeah, In A Station & Whispering Pines are pretty much my favorite Band songs -- I think you're right about Manuel being more intuitive/magical than Robertson. Robbie seems like he tries REALLY hard (and comes up with great stuff regularly), whereas w/ Manuel, you can imagine him just sitting down and having those songs come out. It really is a tragedy he didn't write more ...

i remember one of the goddamned wost things i ever heard was Robbie hawking a new solo record on one of the late night talk shows circa mid-90s.

i think scorcese deserves a lot of blame for how robbie comes across in the film but he deserves an infinite amount more credit for capturing the concert so beautifully so i don't know....

Robbie was tight with Scorcese. There was a lot of criticism at the time that Scorcese was setting Robbie R up as the "star" of the Band.

Huh. I was thinking he deserves credit for not hiding (via editing) what a dick RR is.
xpost

yeah but it is weird -- doesn't the movie start with Robbie doing "takes" of his interviews? It does sort of make him out to be the most artificial of the Band members ...

xp but i think scorcese fuckin' loved it!

I believe excessive amounts of cocaine can impair judgement

doesn't the movie start with Robbie doing "takes" of his interviews?
That’s actually one of my favorite parts of the film — a classic Scorsese trick. That and watching Danko adjust his hat during the sloppy jam on “Old Time Religion.”

my fav line in the interviews is when manuel says they were called the honkies but that name was "a little too street"

robbie's best moment is onstage when crapton's string breaks and he fucking owns "god" in the guitar duel

The bottom line is, the movie's closer to fiction than a documentary, but it's great nonetheless.

Manuel breaks my heart in the Last Waltz, because he's so wasted. In Festival Express he's more...elegant.

Robertson wrote my favorite Band songs ("Get Up Jake", "Across the Great Divide", "The Weight"). I don't know that Manuel wrote more "naturally"...is that because he seems more "authentic"? I'm pretty suspicious of that. I've never heard Robertson's solo albums, but I've meant to do for a long time.

I'm not sure "natural" is the right word, but I guess to me a great Robbie song seems like he had a great idea and really executed it well

whereas, a song like "Sleeping" off of Stage Fright, i can't even quite put my finger on why it's so great...what's so spooky about it, it doesn't even make like literal "sense" but the way he delivers lines is so affecting to me..."magic" is the best word to me...

like "sad old ships...a morning eclipse...i spent my whole life guessing" gives me actual goosebumps (just happened a minute ago) but i couldn't tell you what it "meant"

Yeah, I know what you mean. "Sleeping" is terrific; the drums on the bridge are fabulous. I love "In A Station" too. Manuel wrote the most elegant Band songs, I think ("Whispering Pines" too). And oh man do I love his drumming.

yeah actually him playing drums in those staged sequences (the stuff that's not from the concert) is some of my fav stuff, he looks so weird when he plays like strange puppet

okay Caravan is an awesome song but van morrison roaring @ u is not v. tender

ringo is cute in a zizek sorta way in it tho

http://i386.photobucket.com/albums/oo305/lejospopo/ringo.jpg

always gonna love this movie

weird, i just watched this on Friday. Man, poor Rick Danko during the soundstage songs. dude looked haggard

manuel has the weirdest drum playing mechanics in history. love that man.

i always regret that I didn't go see the 90s incarnation of the Band during their last hurrah. Even if it would be kinda an oldies act, just seeing Dank, Helm and Hudson onstage would've been great. I saw Hudson open for Mercury Rev once. It was bizarre. He was great, his band was bad. He played a lot of saxophone actually.

i would love to have gone back in time and stolen bologna with those dudes

After hearing what a classic this was I found it a huge disappointment.

The theme tune created for the film was beautiful, "The Night They Drove Dixie Down" is brilliantly performed, some of the interviews are nice, Ronnie Hawkins is fun, there is an impressive clip of someone's solo material that got me interested (Danko?) but most of the rest of it seemed just like any other sloppy celebrity sing-along you get at televised festivals and big charity gigs.

yea i don't see it as a classic in the way i see the band's actually good albums (s/t, big pink, etc.) as classics. i see it as a classic as far as depictions go of coked-out 70s rock n roll excess, and for that, it truly is a classic.

Classic if only for this scene alone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-rTkqn-4qg

emmylou harris is so beautiful there

On the one hand, I think almost every performance of Band material here is the definitive version of that song, particularly the Levon songs (Cripple Creek and Dixie obliterate the studio versions). On the other hand, almost everything else about this movie is upsetting and vile. A nightmare of cocaine narcissism and litigation and self-promotion. Scorsese letting Robbie think he could act almost ruins the whole thing.

And I'll never forgive Scorsese for botching Muddy Waters' performance--they didn't even record Caldonia, which is the better of the two songs he did, and Mannish Boy was recorded by accident on one camera, a sickening oversight when Scorsese lets the camera linger so lovingly on Robbie Robertson doing coke and talking shit. And that great version of Down South In New Orleans doesn't make the movie at all while Neil Diamond does.

Overall though, a great movie and a better album that has no business being either. The "look at us, doing mountains of blow in west LA and deciding we're gods" aesthetic almost derails it at every turn, but the songs are too good to kill the proceedings completely.

haha, i don't know, i love this movie. music/cocaine/narcissism/fashion/singalongs... it's all great.

yeah I'm with tyler. I unreservedly love it

even van morrison yelling @ me

TURN IT UP

RADIO

JUMPSUIT

i spent a lot of time trying to figure out wtf van was wearing

I've had this sitting on my hd for 3 years now and can never get in the mood to sit through it.

this is one of those things that I think is hilariously fun to watch but I wouldn't argue that it's actually objectively good, it's excesses are both part of the appeal and part of the reason why it's appeal is limited

That's a good way of putting it

agreed

Levon's account of the filming in This Wheel's On Fire is pretty funny. "Robbie's singing great...into his switched-off mike! Haw haw haw!" Or when the rest of the Band got into an argument with Robbie and Levon said, "Why don't you ask your new friend Neil Diamond? Haw haw haw!"

i was reading something about how after robertson quit The Band, Danko tried to get Richard Thompson to replace him. which would've been interesting.

That would've been PHENOMENAL. Holy crap.

That story sounds a bit too good to be true

it's in the richard thompson bio from a while back -- it does sort of seem like a rumor, don't know how far along it got...

Levon Helm hated this movie. Hated it. And i gotta agree with the man, Robertson is a complete and utter embarrassment throughout.

I wouldn't have noticed it unless someone else said so but someone told me that the other members are sniggering at Robertson throughout the film as he talks, but I thought they might have just been high or could be laughing at anything.

I thought many of the songs were spoiled by unnecessary embellishments and additions, like "The Weight" in particular. Sometimes it seems like everyone wants to compete too much for attention. Things like one singer saying "take the load off" and then someone having to add in "oh yeah you take the loooooad offff".

I disagree with the posts above about Robertson's guitar playing on this thing. Maybe i'm biased because he seems like the worlds biggest prick, but he plays the same goddamn thing every song. Sounds like shit.

Great anecdote from Helm's book: he went to the premier with Hawkins. At the end of the thing Hawkins says something like "I could have sworn Manuel was in the band when we had the concert. Was he even in this thing?"

van morrison's suit is the best

LA LA LA LA

LA LA LA

haha

according to ilxor chris b. Manuel was 33 (!!) when this was shot...he looks like fuckin 50 and beat up jesus christ

haha is that right? holy crap.

this is on netflix instant now, btw, for those (like me) who haven't seen it

let the coke flow!

lots of feral looking men it this movie

Richard George Manuel (April 3, 1943 – March 4, 1986)

you should watch it! it has its problems of course, but it is extremely entertaining. xxp

The Band are great, obviously, but Caravan and Mannish Boy make the movie.

was about to say, worth watching for the van performance if nothing else!

had always assumed danko was the baby of the band for some reason, but turns out he was born the same year as manuel and robertson.

i saw the post-TLW lineup, musta been '84 or so

I love the version of Coyote by Joni

Neil Diamond is the fucking worst in this, one of the most grating performances ever

Figured revive would be because of Netflix.

The Band are great, obviously, but Caravan and Mannish Boy make the movie.
― thom yorke state of mind (voodoo chili)

Always thought the single camera on Muddy was an aesthetic choice, like he was trying to shoot it the way Ozu would.

i tried watching this on netflix but oddly there was no sound for the non-performance parts. the sound came back in with every song tho.

hopefully it doesn't do that for you guys.

Nah was fine for me

Not a big Joni fan, but love her backing vocals on Helpless, too - a Neil/Joni duets alb would've been so cool

Can't recall if I've seen footage of "It Makes No Difference" in Last Waltz or just imagined it from the fantastic recording on my 2cd set, but it's prime Band, Robertson shreds the solo to pieces, Garth sax soloes, Rick's singing is beautiful, song totally rocks.

yeah danko seems really haunted you can tell he doesn't want it to end

When I was 13 or so and just getting into rock, mostly the Who & LZ, my dad, who I describe as a pretty casual music fan, basically made me watch "The Last Waltz". I didn't love all of it at first, but man this movie is fucking seared into my brain.

I've basically lifted all of my stage moves from the Ronnie Hawkins & the Van Morrison performances.

I just sort of randomly decided to watch this over the wknd and almost immediately started texting UMS.

I love the version of Coyote by Joni

Neil Diamond is the fucking worst in this, one of the most grating performances ever

― kurt kobaïan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, June 1, 2015 6:25 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

both otm

I read somewhere that Neil Diamond said "just try and top that" to Dylan as he left the stage, to which Dylan said something like "how, by falling asleep?"

― henry s, Tuesday, September 1, 2009 1:32 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

dylan is so great in this, so grouchy at first and then suddenly he sees someone he must know in the audience and becomes extremely happy.

all the backstory and anecdotes about this are so great

Question: what do the buttons that seemingly everyone is wearing say?

http://theband.hiof.no/band_pictures/TLWbutton.jpg

I was really hoping they be "Have a Coke With Danko!"

Ronnie Hawkins is a god for 1) strutting around like he fuckin' owns the place and 2) have zero respect for the "importance" of the event

man listening to late period Manuel live stuff on YouTube, he would be dead in 2 years after this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YznZZkDTyo

or actually just months

"Slow down, Willie boy, you're heart's gonna give right out on you"
:(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YznZZkDTyo

oops

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWkWd1Z8Xng

holy shit @ those

yeah those 80s manuel recordings... pretty raw.

that "rockin' chair" is sort of the real version of tom wait's theatrical ballads

i think i'm gonna get depressed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGrucjh971k

so crazy how few songs manuel wrote, but they're all so good.

the Band is odd, like the Replacements in that there's one guy (Robbie/Westerburg) that literally did almost everything but the real soul and spirit of the band is in the other guys (the Stinson bros./Manuel-Danko-Helm)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGrucjh971k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_4L4MeTvg8

god my c&p today :/

jesus this stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYxReI1ZYU8

apparently his last show

oof yeah. such a dangerous keyboard tone going on there...

This guy, he had something.

i took a couple somewhat late-coming Band fans to see the movie mayb 10 years ago and they kinda hated Hawkins.

aw i think he's funny i bet he like called scorcese "marty" and gave him a nuggie

I kind of love the fact that Hawkins has a fairly prominent role in Heaven's Gate.

His build up from a moan to a growl to popping his eyes wide open and screaming is amazing

Always thought the single camera on Muddy was an aesthetic choice, like he was trying to shoot it the way Ozu would.

At one point, all the cameras except László Kovács' were shut down as Muddy Waters was to perform "Mannish Boy".[9] Kovács, frustrated by Scorsese's constant instructions, had removed his communications headset earlier in the evening and had not heard the orders to stop filming.[10] As Scorsese frantically tried to get other cameras up, Kovács was already rolling and able to capture the iconic song by the blues legend. "It was just luck," Scorsese recalled in the DVD documentary, The Last Waltz Revisited.[9]

^Awesome, thanks.

The Hawk almost stole the show, but I guess he got beat out by Van the Man and Muddy. Like how he sort of still treated them like they were his backing band and he was the star.

Those Manuel recordings are impressive... it's kind of like seeing something you're not supposed to see, a level of intimacy that's... private. I dunno.

here's someone you know for sure: neil diamond

thanks very much

according to ilxor chris b. Manuel was 33 (!!) when this was shot...he looks like fuckin 50 and beat up jesus christ

― kurt kobaïan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, June 1, 2015 4:35 PM (three years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Had this same revelation the other day.

The Band are great, obviously, but Caravan and Mannish Boy make the movie.

― thom yorke state of mind (voodoo chili), Monday, June 1, 2015 5:56 PM

i would throw in 'dixie' and 'it makes no difference' . . . but yeah

voodoo chili how do you rate this 'caravan' vs the 'it's too late to stop now' version on yr list?

this, linked above, is great

The last waltz version has a drunken, spasmodic energy that is awesome in the context of the film, but it’s not really what I turn to “caravan” for, honestly.

The live version on my list is quite a bit softer, and stretched out to 9 mins—a lot of the time, I want the outro to last forever and in that version, it does. There’s also a great moment in that version when Van calls for the sax player to do a solo, and before he starts, he makes a little noise that sounds like he was just forcefully woken from a nap.

<3

I only saw this recently and it made me feel grubby. There's something anodyne about the whole thing, characterised by Robbie who has a peculiar dead-eyed blankness about him. I wonder if all the prior knowledge about Robertson's interventions and his selective choreographing to practically eliminate Hudson and Manuel had some effect. Anyway, dud, mostly, save for Joni who lights up the whole damn thing and Van.

don't do it: 10/10
coyote: 10/10
caravan: 10/10
helpless: 8/10
neil diamond doin his thing: 8/10
mannish boy: 10/10
ophelia: 10/10
stage fright 9/10
cripple creek 10/10

the rest of the movie could be robbie robertson swimming in a river of piss and it'd still be a fuckin classic, this footage is priceless

otm

lots of cocaine residue on the emulsion here

(Marty freely admits he nearly died)

thirded xp

mannish boy: 10/10

fucking 20/10 christ

oh yeah

neil diamond doing his thing -27/10

Coming to Criterion next year

https://www.criterion.com/films/29460-the-last-waltz

New 4K restoration and on UHD - definitely getting this!

The full concert 'House Camera' version is still up on YT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbEL--AMBUk

Ha, wow. So they cut half of it out??

Sort of. The 'House' version is the video feed captured from the in-house camera system at the Winterland, and was never considered for inclusion in the film. It's pretty limited visually, but it covers basically the whole show, including alot of stuff Scorsese's crew didn't get, or got and subsequently was lost in post-production, plus all the original audio before the overdubs made for the film and album.

The actual movie is only like 1/3 of full show, hence the inclusion of the interviews and the studio retakes of tracks Robertson thought would come off better as duets.

Yeah, don't forget the four-CD box set Rhino put out. Even the original two-CD/triple-LP soundtrack was clearly much longer than the film, but that concert really went on forever.

Honestly, the film got the best parts. As live albums go, the original soundtrack was pretty good, but not as good as Rock of Ages (and not nearly as good as the vastly improved update Live at the Academy 1971). All the previously unreleased stuff on the box set was merely okay, nothing I would personally miss.

holy crap Danko on 'Makes no Difference'...so good

Yes

He seems to do that one very well live, even after the Band broke up.

Here's another from a popular bootleg - from Levon and Rick's 1983 tour, this is a soundboard recording from Starry Night in Portland, Oregon. (The original taper took the first generation cassette that was patched into the board and digitized it for trade.)

Song's at 11:36

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbH5MkKuMkI

Can’t forget the Garth on the saxophone either on that one
Damn

Recently learned about the Sadies & Neko Case's live version of "Evangeline" w/Garth on accordion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stIrlS4flEA

“And the dawn don’t rescue me no more”
Fuck

Say what you want about this movie/concert/album, (as Wayne Robins did here but Ronnie Hawkins performance of "Who Do You Love" is all time, maybe up there with Muddy Waters and Van the Crazy Man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYPVyJwzerM

loved his energy in the movie, and as a talking head in the robbie robertson doc.

seemed like a gregarious character :(

Although I see it didn’t even make Aero’s list.

Think I’m gonna check out those Muscle Shoals records mentioned elsewhere.

I particularly like Richard's approach to Primitive Piano on "Who Do You Love."

Just noticed some audience members shouting “The Hawk!” before Robbie finishes introducing him.

Ah, as you mighta heard, we gotta couple of friends joining in with us tonight. (Applause) Sixteen years ago, when we started, we started with a guy- "The Hawk!" - you mighta heard him. We'd like to start with him. The Hawk, Ronnie Hawkins.

Aaaah, Aaaaaah, Aaaaaaaah, AAAAAAAAH!

Spotify renders that simply as "Woah."

danko tho

Fucking Garth

Who do you love?

This played here last night. It was so damn LOUD that my friend and I (and multiple other people) went to complain.

Yes, I know that’s part of the ethos or whatever but goddamn

“ Or, how about the part where they talk about "women on the road" and how much they like to get on top of them and how important they are to their great sludgey garbage-country rock AND THEN INTRODUCE JONI MITCHELL. Even I was offended.”

I caught that too, it was gross

Wasn’t familiar with The Band in any meaningful way prior to this, though while watching realized I’d encountered a few songs in the wild.

As an exercise in musicianship this was pretty fun. Neat to see Bob Dylan enjoying himself and loved the Joni Mitchell song, which I hadn’t heard before somehow.

But at some point during one of the many interludes I leaned over to my friend and muttered “this just makes me want to rewatch This Is Spinal Tap.”

Another thought, and it’s the same thought I had during Shine A a Light (which I wasn’t as impressed by in terms of performance): holy shit, how expensive was it to tour this production?!? And I’m not talking about the famous special guests, but the proper band and (if they were involved) the horn players and such?

Simple: they didn't tour the production. In the past they had only used horn sections live on special occasions (like the recording of Rock of Ages), and most of the arrangements in The Last Waltz were repeats from those sessions.

They didn't tour it, it was a one-off. Wiki doesn't give a budget but says the whole thing was financed by Warner Bros., who only agreed to fund it if the film included Dylan's performance. There was an anxious moment when Dylan suddenly said he didn't want to be filmed, but Bill Graham talked him round.

xp

Thanks Xpost

I love certain highlights but haven’t sat through the whole thing in decades and don’t plan on doing so anytime soon.

I wish they'd have left Neil's coke booger in and removed the prominent Confederate flag instead, tbh.

after Neil Diamond does his song doesn't Robbie say "thats a great song" or something?

Robbie co-wrote that song and produced that album, which says "produced by Neil Diamond" on the cover very prominently. That's pretty unusual for a 70s rock record. He's not exactly Phil Spector or even a Beatle or whatever.

xgau:

Beautiful Noise [Columbia, 1976]
This is a monstrous record. The "rock" star who broke the Broadway barrier seems to be thinking Big Musical, in the urban sentimental mode (complete with Evil, of course) that does such small justice to the challenge of New York. Although fellow urban sentimentalist Robbie Robertson can achieve an awesome (almost fulsome) fullness with rock instrumentation, his production is basically pop program music. Yet somewhere in my cockles I found Diamond hooking me as I listened for the last time and I had to admit that it takes a special kind of chutzpah to create a monster. C+

Robbie? Urban? that's an interesting take.

Urban on his father's side, and xgau may have been thinking along the lines of his Nothern Lights---Southern Cross review:

... the pure comeliness of every melody on this album led to an immediate infatuation. As I listened to the words, however, infatuation turned to mild affection, for the best of these songs is sentimental, and the worst (the two that are set in the city) are grossly sentimental. Only Garth Hudson, who has turned into a synthesizer natural, saves things in the end, and just barely. B+

Robbie? Urban? that's an interesting take.

He's from Toronto I believe? That's kind of a big city.

i spent a lot of time trying to figure out wtf van was wearing

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 9 August 2013 17:45 (ten years ago) bookmarkflaglink

^^^

somehow i only just watched this for the first time ever

neil diamond is fine you goofy mob lol (and better than fkn clapton)

I used to think it was a leisure suit Van has on but it’s not quite that, plus the hue of it changes as if one were watching an old color television like a Quasar or Magnavox.

i too take my leisure in a tight puce undershirt

*high kick*

rip

🥁

Leisure suit…pants suit…jump suit!

Is it purple? Is it brown? Some kind of textile version of a mood ring maybe?

It’s one of those things that’s perhaps best left unexplained

You can’t dust for sequin shade.

Sorry, one word, pantsuit. Trouser suit to you Britishes.

Some say that they're coming back in a garden
Bunch of carrots and little sweet peas
I think I'll just let the mystery be.

er, DeMent, I meant.

Robbie? Urban? that's an interesting take.

He's from Toronto I believe? That's kind of a big city.

Sure, but nobody would describe the Band's music as urban, would they? Even if they did their first album in NYC and their second in LA.

"Hobo Jungle" and "Rags and Bones", the two songs under reference, are both set in the city.

...and, the songs under accusation of being grossly sentimental, that makes Robertson an "urban sentimentalist" a year later.

Yeah, although xgau admits he likes the *sound* of the songs, and even gives the album a B+. Don't get so hung up on lyrics, 'gau (seems like he does that more and more). But since The Band did have some good lyrics some time before that record came out, guess he was struck by the difference.

He seems to consider Islands their worst, though I've never heard it. Is he right? Seems plausible at that point (I take it the title had to do with gaps).

Islands was an odds'n'sods set (that according to Robbie was promoted as a proper album) they delivered as a contractual obligation to Capital so Warners could release The Last Waltz.

If you like The Band, it's worth hearing as sort of a last hurrah of the original lineup as a studio band. They cover "Ain't That A Lot of Love" of which I know not a bad version. "The Saga of Pepote Rouge" is a sweet sing-along that appears on comps. "Twilight" is them doing Reggae.

I seem to also recall it was front-loaded with weaker material, a fatal move in the vinyl days.

my friends watch this every year on Thanksgiving

this year I went away thinking that Dr. John steals the show

Re: Islands, I think the last three tracks are keepers: "Georgia on My Mind," "Knockin' Lost John" and "Livin' in a Dream" (probably my favorite of the three). I enjoy them but don't care for the rest though "Pepote Rouge" and the Christmas song definitely have their fans.

The Last Waltz was my first real introduction to Dr. John. I only knew him as a piece of pop culture (Popeye's Chicken, Dr. Teeth's inspiration) and not as a musician - I was completely unfamiliar with "Such a Night" and absolutely loved it. The whole film was my introduction to a lot of things: "Helpless," "Caravan," Paul Butterfield, and above all the Band, and speaking as a kid who didn't know any of those songs or those particular people, the movie was amazing. So despite all the issues one would have with it (for good reason), I still think there's a lot that's great about it that can still make converts.

there's a lot you could sneer at, make fun of, poke holes in -- but as a once-a-year Thanksgiving ritual, it's brilliant. i always look forward to making fun of Neil Diamond, laughing hysterically at Van Morrison's kicks, grooving to Joni and Muddy Waters

the part where Clapton's guitar strap falls off and Robbie, without missing a beat, jumps right in and smokes him: classic

I don’t know if I buy that Robbie smoked him

Re: Neil Diamond, I'm not a fan, but I love his Bang recordings. Wish they played one of THOSE songs, it would've made the case for his inclusion rock solid. (Besides their history together, Robbie wanted Diamond as a representative of the Brill Building - every guest was supposed to represent one vital aspect of rock history up to that point, minus the proto-punk and avant-garde side that Robbie never seemed to care for.)

XP Fresh Smoked Clapton

I don't remember Diamond in that; what songs did he do, just ones from xxxpost Beautiful Noise? Don't know if it was out yet, but shoulda done "Sweet Caroline" with The Band x Toussaint's horns, also yeah Brill Building.

“Dry Your Eyes” iirc

And yeah the Bang stuff is great.

XP Fresh Smoked Clapton

minus the proto-punk and avant-garde side that Robbie never seemed to care for

Now pining for the Iggy & Zappa collabs that could have been.

Robbie: "The man...IGGY POP! He was in the Stooges!"

<The Band + Iggy perform shaky version of "Search & Destroy">

<Zappa's guitar strap breaks, Robertson smokes him by picking up the solo on "Pumping The Poodle (Variations #2)">

Robbie: "The man...IGGY POP! He was in the Stooges!"

<The Band + Iggy perform shaky version of "Search & Destroy">

Moe Tucker continues all the while unfazed and focused on pounding out the rhythm on her upended bass drum, doesn’t miss a beat.

David Crosby makes face to show that he is not amused, picks fights with all and sundry, including Graham Nash and a very out of it Michael Clarke.

i want this as my xmas card, i'm inbetween levon and garth lookswise at this point in my life

https://www.upstatefilms.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/theband-2048x1307.jpg