“The best concert movie ever made”
Heard that a few times haven’t you? Talk about damning with faint praise.
I’ve paid good money in to see quite a few stinkers: vanity projects, over-hyped and massively over-dubbed. I’ve seen one or two reasonable efforts. But are there any great ones?
Now you may hold views on the concert movies which might be too withering in their honesty for publication over on RR. Here, however, you may choose to pay homage to your favourite such flick, delight in cruelly exposing ambition/narcissism interlaced with a bewildering lack of talent, or diss the concept of the concert movie and yes, even a considered meh is fully acceptable. Any stance should be supported with some form of evidence or justification.
Off you go then.
Oh no, it’s like watching televised theatre. It’s a LIVE artform; it’s all about being there in the moment, experiencing a collective something with a load of other (preferably sweaty, slightly drunken) bodies/souls. You’re not getting a fraction of the experience if you’re watching it at (at least) one remove on screen. At best, two of your senses may be engaged (sight and sound), but a concert is a more visceral experience than that: all that bass reverberating through your body, etc. Not to mention the smells and the taste (beer again)…
No no no. (And no, I can’t think of a good concert film.)
That said, I was tempted by the trailer for the recent LCD Soundsystem film. But then the reviews I read said it wasn’t much cop (and I’m terrible for taking reviews on trust).
Can’t argue with any of that, bish. I saw LCD Soundsystem playing in precisely such a sweaty venue – can’t imagine a movie of a gig in an EnormoDrome is going to do it for me.
Song Remains the Same.
Ok, great concert footage. But could have well done with out the fantasies. Cringeworthy they were.
Gimme Shelter rocked though. Still haven’t seen Cocksucker Blues.
Did i even ever see The Last Waltz? I may well not have.
Hey, I loved the fantasy bits of the Song Remains the Same, could have done without Peter Grant shouting at people, but Bobsy in the forest…I’d have gladly been the girlie in the castle, I have actually been to the very place it was filmed in homage!
How come you’re anonymous WITH a photo, Beth?!
I think it might be because it had signed me out and I signed in as I commented. I don’t think it’s supposed to do that though. I have a poster for Celebration Day, but haven’t got it yet, I think there is such a thing as too much Led Zeppelin for me.
The dream sequences were rather daft. I have the Celebration Day full bifter DVD BluRay thingy which I’m hoping to watch this weekend.
Mad Dogs and Englishmen starring Joe Cocker and the entourage for the 1970 tour. It’s a really good soundtrack. I’m quite fond of The Last Waltz too.
I like The Last Waltz. Hmm, perhaps I need to watch that again too…
I remember thinking The Last Waltz was excellent but it’s years since I saw it.
It will surprise nobody to read that my favourite concert film is Pack Up The Plantation by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, which I never get tired of watching. The venue is quite small and the camerawork has a good balance of audience POV and closeups – yet the editing is very unobtrusive. The stage is so low that during the show seven young women climb up on it and kiss TP (which he doesn’t seem to mind).The sound is excellent. It commemorates the Southern Accents tour of 1985 which, alone of TP&TH tours, featured a horn section and backing singers.
After an opening section showing the fans queuing up outside (one of whom is sporting the T shirt which I own – well, probably not the same one), there’s a short section showing the band in the dressing room; and the transition from that to the stage shows the parallel transition of TP from young man messing about with his mates to genuine star performer. He’s said in interviews that there isn’t a different him who performs on stage: well, there is and you can see him created in this film.
I won’t post The Waiting, because that’s the one I always post; but instead my favourite of all TP’s songs, in my favourite performance. You can see the terrific lighting and back projection effects on this, not to mention hearing the wondrous Mike Campbell playing slide guitar.
Southern Accents by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
There you go – homage paid. Think I’ll go and watch it again now.
I should say that all the clips from the film that are on YouTube are really really dark for some reason.
it’s difrfeent line up in difrfeent places, but basically it’s the same songs. I know it’s mostly songs from Pioneer album. but I know they always sing Into your arms.
Gimme Shelter was pretty good I thought. It really conveyed the sense of chaos and cock up that characterised Altamont ( or so I imagine).
If chronicles of a tour rather than a single concert count then my fave has to be Wasted Orient the sorry tale of Joyside’s first Chinese “tour”.
I also quite enjoyed the Glastonbury Fayre ( not the Julian Temple one !) film even though the artists weren’t all top names.It just looked much more fun that today’s sanitised corporate crud.
I think they can be a nice memento if you were at the gig. The recent (deliberate spelling mistake) Ceromonies live DVD from the Fields of the Nephilim which recorded a gig I was part of in 2007 was great because it brought back so many little memories I’d forgotten, but being there was obviously a totally different experience.
Having said that I do seem to own quite a few concert DVDs, Pink Floyd’s Live at Pompeii is a wonderful document (not just because the young and very fit ex model David Gilmour gets his top off) an I have rewatched Deep Purple’s Live at the Rainbow many times. Perhaps it’s best if there is a special event, rather than just a night of a tour?
Donds for Pink Floyd – my friends and I went to the amphitheatre and stood in homage, not to the ancient Roman architect but to the band …
Cool, we went there on a tight schedule and didn’t get a chance to visit the amphitheatre when we went.
I think Stop Making Sense is by far the best concert film precisely because it was conceived as a spectacle to be filmed.
The Last Waltz was pretty good too if my memory is right. It was a long time ago so maybe I wouldn’t think so now.
Haven’t seen Born To Boogie in about 40 years. That was based around a concert wasn’t it?
Saw it in the cinema. Either they were a super-competent live band or whole chunks were overdubbed in the studio. I’d like to think it’s the former – it certainly is a spectacle.
Donds for Stop Making Sense. The only other one I can think of, that works as as a stand alone rather than souvenir, would be Laurie Anderson’s Home Of The Brave.
Hail Hail Rock and Roll ! ! !
It was Keith Richard and Chuck Berry making a concert. It was quite funny and very informative and I liked it as a movie.
Concert DVDs are my weakness but I do not think of them as movies. My favourite Concert DVD is Cruising by YUI of the Cruising Tour which was a fantastic tour. I saw it in Sendai, so I was not at the concert where the DVD was recorded.
YUI Cruising – Clip
Hail Hail Rock and Roll – Clip
Oh, I love Hail Hail Rock and Roll, Sakura! I have the four-DVD set (which is rather too much of a good thing to be honest).
And Chuck sent Keef a bill for the hire of his equipment – classy,
The majority of concert films give me the feeling that it’s some kind of coke-fuelled visual masturbation for both band & director.
I blame it on Scorcese (1st rule of concert film – never film your idols as you see them – because it’s generally humourless = tedious). Stop Making Sense got it right not too arty & does not take itself seriously.
Right so…
The Last Waltz (The Band and friends) – bloody brilliant, don’t honestly see how anyone could knock it.
Stop Making Sense (Talking Heads) – Yeah, it’s not like being there, but still very good.
The Final Riot (paramore) – Very good, does a reasonable job of capturing the atmosphere, and all the backstage footage, interviews, etc are interesting and not simply there as filler.
Louder Now Part One and Louder Now Part Two (Taking Back Sunday) – Epically brilliant performance that captures the second incarnation of the band at its peak, I could live without the backstage stuff.
**** Live In Phoenix (Fall Out Boy) – Again, can’t fault the performance. The backstage stuff is awful. Not egotistical, just stupid. ‘Jackass’-style stunts and stuff.
The Mark, Tom and Travis Show – The Enema Strikes Back (blink-182) – Perfect. Or at least, perfect when you’re 14.
From Clare Island to Cape Cod (The Saw Doctors) – Enjoyable, certainly no egos involved!
After that, my sole experience of concert movies is the Warped Tour compilations, which aren’t the same, they’re highlights of loads of bands, put together by the tour organisers.
There’s also Start The Machine by Angels & Airwaves, but that’s a documentary about the formation of the band and is simultaneously an ego trip, an insight into the creative processes of a fairly massive band and an attempt by Tom DeLonge to justify quitting blink-182. AVA have also made a science fiction film, Love.
So I can’t say I have any real issues with the idea of a concert movie…
No mention of Rattle & Hum? One of the most excruciating and risable bits of mythmaking ever committed to film.
I think that’s actually the only concert movie I’ve ever seen (I assume Spinal Tap doesn’t count?), as I was dragged along to it by someone I vaguely knew at college on the basis that none of his friends in the Christian Union liked rock music at all so I’d do. It was indeed truly awful, apparently hell-bent on finding every possible way of laying claim to African-American culture and credibility in an utterly nauseating manner. Ghastly; I’m faintly amazed that I ever listened to any U2 music ever again…
Forgot about that! Only ever watched a little bit of it because it was so pretentious…
DuranDuran – Arena
“some kind of coke-fuelled visual masturbation for both band & director” did you say:
Instead of releasing a straight concert video, Duran Duran and director Russell Mulcahy thought it might be fun to play around with the origins of the band’s name (the 1968 film Barbarella), and added a storyline and some surreal elements that are woven around and through the footage of the band playing on stage.
The film’s villain, the evil Dr. Durand Durand (played by Milo O’Shea, reprising his role from Barbarella) has crash landed on Earth and is surprised and confused to find teenagers chanting his name. When he discovers that they are not chanting for him, but for an upstart pop group, he sets up shop beneath the concert arena and attempts to wreak havoc on the band that stole his name. Of course, he and his henchmen fail at every turn and Duran Duran continue to perform, seemingly unaware of the evil doctor’s plans.
The video also included Russell Mulcahy’s long-form video for “The Wild Boys”. It was meant to be a teaser for a full-length feature film of the same name, based on the 1971 novel The Wild Boys: A Book Of The Dead by William S. Burroughs. However, that film was never made.
———————–
I could well have been suffering from the same mental breakdown that’s resurfacing at the moment – but this was bloody ace – crazy and nuts – for coke fuelled superstars, quite self depreciating and funny… (or I was 14 and the dancers were half naked – I can’t quite recall).
Couldn’t stand the bands music though, but the bits in between the concert were great…. (in an over the top 1980′s – we have money to vomit’ way)***
*** Chris would love it.
Yep, that was bonkers alright. Wild Boys had Simon hanging from the windmill blade getting dunked – nice.
In my head, I watched a ‘making of’ the Wild Boys video on something like Duncan Dares. Although I must be mistaken on the programme because I’m not sure what Duncan would have been daring.
I think I’ll have to watch that Duran Duran video, shane, sounds amazing!
That sounds brilliant! Where can I get a copy?
In the end, you can’t capture the experience of live music with a recording. For that reason I’m not really into buying concert DVDs. Even if I’m enjoying it, I feel a bit cheated because I know I’m definitely not enjoying it like the guys you can see on the DVD are enjoying it.
I will put in a good word for ‘concert films of a concert you were at’!
“Everything Live” was a 1997 Manics concert film of a big arena show they did, which I attended, so having the VHS made a nice souvenir, plus I’m in it for about 2 seconds, which is also nice.
Depeche Mode 101 – Two hours of footage that proves basically that Depeche Mode on stage sounds a lot like Depeche Mode in the studio.
Urgh! A Music War was a fun live comp of some of what was going on at the time (1982). Some DVD highlights of the various Futurama festies would be better, but there aren’t any.
Well you’ve hit on another of my obsessions, I’ve been collecting music related films, DVD’s and VHS, both performances and documentaries of many genres all my life. Back in about 1985 I started cataloging ‘em on my computer, I just checked the list and there’s 443 separate entries.I can’t come close to listing ‘em all but I’ll give a few of my favorites.
Traffic – live at Santa Monica Civic.
Miles – live from Montreux.
Synchronicity – the Police
Bring on the night
Bob Andy – Live in Tokyo.
Ray Charles – live concert in LA
Joni Mitchell – Shadows and Light
Sunny Ade – Live in Japan
Bob Marley – live from Santa Barbara ’72. I was there
Bob Marley, live at the Rainbow club.
Taj Mahal – live at Watts Towers. I was there
The Last Waltz, best ever music performance/documentary
Woodstock, ditto
Stop Making Sense.
Graceland – live from Harare, another greatest
There’s dozens more, many fairly obscure performances by less well known artists.
If this thread is likely to include music documentaries and films, I’ll toss in a few favorites.
Round Midnight – Charlie Parker
Bird – ditto
Time will Tell – BMW
Spinal Tap
Hard Days Night
Jazz on a Summers day, great ’60′s film about the Newport Jazz fest.
Heartland Reggae
Rockers – maybe the best reggae film
Countryman- a great Ja. film with a lot of reggae
Rhythm of Resistance; the name says it all, the music of apartheid South Africa
Bongo Man, another Ja. reggae film
The harder they come; the film that started the worldwide reggae phenomenon
Kansas City; Robert Altman fill set in and about the origins of KC jazz
Glen Gould; 32 short films about. performance and life.
Gotta run, I’ll be back.
Spinal Tap was wonderful ! ! !
agree about Rockers – watched it last year and loved it. Thought it was better than The Harder They Come and wondered why it wasn’t more famous!
Forgot ‘Jazz On A Summers Day’ worth the watch just for Thelonious Monk’s bamboo stem shades!
Here’s just a few more films that come to mind.
Monterey Pop, 1968, D A Pennebaker
Don’t look Back – Pennebaker, Dylan
Marley 2012- Kevin McDonald
Heartland Reggae – the One Love Peace concert in Kgn
Land of Look Behind – Ja documentary with a lot of reggae
Reggae Sunsplash- the annual 4 day event in Montego Bay
Google and Wiki will give you details of the performances if you’re interested.
Donds for The Last Waltz and Stop Making Sense.
Ladies & Gentlemen The Rolling Stones is great. To see Mick Taylor ripping it up, to hear a bunch of songs from Exile, to watch the interplay on stage between Mick and Keef, and the non-interplay with Mick. Who can complain?
Van Morrison at Montreux 1980/1974 is also a favourite. Great band backing Van in fine singing form.
I agree there are limitations in live recordings. For me, they are often a kind of documentary often filling in bits of a band’s history I never knew about.
Got to go with Mnemonic on Last Waltz and the Joe Cocker … for my second and third choices.
Best for me is Neil Young’s Heart of Gold, shot in 2006 at the Ryman Aud in Nashville. Between playing some of his best know songs he ruminates on their origins and current place in his life. There is a warmth and humility to the man that shines through, and the playing by his ensemble cast is absolutely sensational, whether it’s a couple of them or the whole shebang. INFO: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473692/fullcredits#cast
This start of this clip will make more sense if I pass on that it starts AFTER he has told us it is Hank Williams’ old guitar, which a buddy found for him in a second hand shop.
Loved that, tincanman – and I’ve never seen the film, though I’m a big NY fan, as are my kids – he was known as the Messy Man in our household back in the day. Must see this film!
I’m a bit surprised about people saying they don’t like concert films because it’s not like going to an actual concert. Of course it isn’t – it’s a film. It’s still possible for a good director to create lots of atmosphere in the film so that watching it is interesting – and hell, if you like the band you’re going to want to watch them, aren’t you? Which is why I’ve got 19 TP&TH concert films.
Well, it looks like the upshot of this thread is: watch Stop Making Sense and The Last Waltz. Which I haven’t ever done (so clearly my prejudices are a little uninformed!). Will keep an eye on BBC4 and the like.
I rewatched the Stones Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus the other day, that was good (with a lot of overdubs, but it sounded much better, so I don’t care).
Oh yes ! That’s an enjoyable one, very much “of it’s time” I think.
If documentaries are included I’d shout out for The Punk Rock Movie which is one of the few relics from the early days of punk and is suitably crap ( in a good way).
Cheers Llama! You’ve just reminded me to purchase ‘Alice Russell Live In Paris’ (Tru – Thoughts first dvd). This is a great concert filmed in a small intimate venue, and from the couple of tunes I’ve seen on YT, really shows off her vocal skills to the max, and the excellent band she was with back then. I actually prefer her live recordings to studio ones. Those can be a little polished and over produced. Don’t think I’ll be getting the chance to see her live anytime in the near future, so this is def the next best thing. I’ve already posted her version of ‘Seven Nation Army’ from this gig on RR before, so I’ll post the other song here:
Alice Russell – Taking Hold
Right. Off for a trip down th’Amazon now.
I don’t buy the argument about ‘it’s not as good as the real thing’ either. I’m quite happy to watch other atmosphere-filled events (e.g. football) on a screen and I’m also usually quite relieved to forego the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd if I’m able to see and hear good music.
As a performance designed for the screen, Stop Making Sense is hard to beat. The build-up of the band and the show is expertly done. It’s well-paced and well-recorded. And, imho, it’s the best line-up/set of songs they ever did.
Scorsese’s docs/concert films are always worth watching, as he makes great effort to showcase artists he loves and attempts to get close to them. Although he got no/little time with Dylan, for example, his No Direction Home is enjoyable and informative, despite its length.
Pure concert films only work if you love the act and they play well. The Closing Of Winterland is actually a recording of a live TV transmission of the Dead’s NYE concert from 1978. There’s almost 6 hours of music but only about a third is really good. Still, you also get to see Bill Graham descending to the stage on a giant spliff, dressed as Father Time.
The Grateful Dead Movie is Jerry Garcia’s attempt to demonstrate the adage ‘there is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert’. He got a film crew to shoot miles of film from their 1974 Winterland run, as the band was taking a break and it was possible they may never re-form. In addition to intimate on-stage sequences, they got into the audience before and during the gigs, wandered backstage, around the parking lot, T-shirt stalls etc. Garcia intended it to be shown only in movie theaters with good sound systems and mixed the sound appropriately (making the initial VHS release sound weird), determined that watching the movie in a cinema crowded with Deadheads would be as close as possible to the original concert experience. It took him 2.5 years to assemble, edit and produce, cost $600,000 and an enormous amount of time and effort. And he acquired his heroin habit during the process. All for a film that would never be widely seen.
It is a great portrait of a unique band and community. Not all the performances are fantastic but there plenty of jewels. There’s also a trippy hand-stitched animation as a prelude, full of GD iconography and noises:
And is it ever shown in a cinema crowded with Deadheads? I would love to see it in one…that animation takes me right back.
Pop quiz: the Dead played the last-ever concert at Winterland on Dec 31 1978. Who played there the previous night?
I’m gonna go with Tom Petty, as a wild guess.
Give that woman a prize!
It got a limited re-release in California a couple of years ago, organised through dead.net so, yes! (The DVD/blu-ray has a remixed soundtrack, so it now sounds good in a living room.)
Even if I didn’t know the answer to your quiz, the very fact that it’s your question provides a massive clue! Mr Petty and his band, by any chance?
Second prize! That was the night TP got pulled into the audience and his roadie had to jump in and save him.
Eels’ “Live With Strings” is rather wonderful – highly recommended if you haven’t seen it, llamalpaca.
I have it on cd, which is pretty good in itself. They’re touring soon so looking forward to seeing them in Glasgow.
Back in 1982 Neil Young (being Neil ) was having a great time pissing off Geffen & some of his fans with his Trans experiment. I’d been a fan since 1966 but even I wasn’t too sure about the vocoder stuff. Still, with Neil, it’s easy to forgive. I’ll have to agree with Bish’s comments for the most part because the immediacy of the crowd is impossible to capture on film. Your focus is on the screen and it’s a dimension that doesn’t contain you in the concert hall. Maybe because of that I rarely listen to a concert more than once. Neil Young – Live in Berlin is the exception. The energy of the band jumps from the screen. Neil was on fire, Nils Lofgren a manic pixie & ( for near the last time ) Bruce Palmer was in full control of himself & his wonderful bass. Even the Trans material is sublime here. I play this at least once a year ( at 12 ’cause that’s Neil’s setting) and it just takes me away. Could only find this one clip but it will do I think. My,my, Hey,hey http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SdikywAcaM
Finny: I’ll look for that one.
I overlooked that I have a stack of DVD’s in the living room and there a few there that deserve a mention. The annual Bridge School concerts organized by Neil Young are always filmed and are well worth a watch, check youtube. I have a great disc titled Accordian Tribes, it’s a European concert tour by probably the world’s greatest five accordionists, don’t dismiss it lightly, it’s amazing. The Ken Burns ‘Jazz’ series of 5 discs is excellent as is Astor Piazzolla – In Portrait, a dbl DVD devoted to Tango, Nina Simone at Monteux caused a bit of a flurry here some years ago, it’s a brilliant video but it’s obvious she’s not well or is very stressed out. Word, Sound and Power is an excellent video of the Soul Syndicate band rehearsing in a yard in Kingston, made by a mate of mine. A couple of films, Straight no Chaser-Theolonius Monk and Celebrating the Bird – Charlie Parker. And a couple more DVD’s, Heart of Gold, already mentioned but it bears repeating, A woman of Heart and Mind, another concert performance by Joni Mitchell, Kaya n Daya, Bob’s music recorded by Gilberto Gil in Brazil and Dave Alvin at the Great American Music Hall in SF, another by one of my mates – excellent.
Oh yeah! Straight No Chaser! Wasn’t his wife Nellie a bloody star?
I like The Secret World Tour (Peter Gabriel) although that may be classed as a video rather than a film.
There are so many bands where i prefer the live album to the studio originals. Studio tends to be shorter and less animated .. so made in japan rather than machine head, yessongs before fragile anyday
And seeing as I play cd’s on me DVD player, ‘cos the the one on the record player busted, then why not have pictures to go along with the sound … so concert DVD is fine
except no-one knew back in the 70′s that such a thing might exist and hardly filmed a thing .. now they are still doing shows and can film them .. so I have a selection of my favourite 70 songs played rather slowly by some very old geezers .. fat and balding (but who am i to complain about that)
Neil Young’s Rust Never Sleeps had all the roadies dressed as Star Wars thingys hooded with shiny eyes
They also got band & crew members kids dressed the same way .. as they were the right size for the Star Wars reference. Three of those maybe 10 year olds are shown dancing to Cinnamon Girl behind the speakers .. its better than seeing Neil to be honest .. he does pull some odd faces
In Sheffield i was in an indie cinema called the Anvil and walking down a lot of stairs to leave, when I heard the opening of Psycho Killer .. went in and found they were just running through the reels that had arrived that day to test them .. watched that in a room alone .. which was good as I sang along and no-one should be subjected to that .. seemed odd giving the songs a standing ovation but they deserved it .. not sure what the projectionist thought .. but he did unlock the front doors to let me out .. glad to be rid, i expect
Amongst the old fat bloke versions is the recent Yes Symphonic, the old proggies backed by a polish youth orchestra .. mainly female
they knew they were on camera so are seen enthusiastically head banging through all the guitar solos and come on to dance to Roundabout at the end .. wonderful renditions of Topograhic & Relayer tracks to boot
i had seen one lady attempt to dance to yes in 1975 .. but still a rare thing to capture on film
As for if you’re not there, you missed it .. well i did miss it, so why not the dvd.. Flaming Lips will be doing in the court of the cimson king in full on this spring tour .. no way will i be there … but if i got a chance to see a dvd of it, i reckon its a decent substitute
It’s not a concert film, but as we are on the subject of music films, I watched “Searching for Sugar Man” last night and loved it.
If anyone hasn’t seen it, it’s the story of a couple of South African blokes looking for lost and forgotten 70s singer-songwriter Rodriguez and was truly heart-warming