A farewell concert that, fortunately, actually happened

Bob Westal — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:29:03 +0000

And filmed by Martin Scorsese no less. There are numerous clips available from “The Last Waltz,” but especially since this is still Halloween weekend, I doubt there’s a better choice than the Band’s riveting “Stage Fright,” with the late Rick Danko singing and playing lead and Garth Hudson burning up the keyboards. Remember, this blog post should be played loud.

Although it wasn’t a farewell engagement, the only concert film so far that may have topped Scorsese’s rock and roll masterpiece was Jonathan Demme’s great document of a night with an augmented version of Talking Heads, “Stop Making Sense.” Here are the fabulous foursome at the top of their respective games performing one of their best scary songs, “Life During Wartime,” alongside Brother Johnson’s guitarist Alex Weir and Parliament/Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell, among others. (For some reason this clip starts out a bit oddly — the music begins at about 0:20. Trust me, it’s worth dealing with the brief gap.)

Stage Fright – Premium Hollywood

A farewell concert that, fortunately, actually happened