And The Band Played On
John Lennon & The Plastic Ono Band Live In Toronto '69
Dir: D.A. Pennebaker
1969
In 1969, The Beatles were the biggest and best group ever. Abbey Road had not yet been released by September 13, let alone the swan song that was Let It Be. Rock 'n' roll was beginning to go strange places, with psychedelia slowly winding down, but glam and punk only distantly in sight. And John Lennon was slowly drifting away from the rest of The Beatles and introducing his female counterpart, Yoko Ono, to the world.
D.A. Pennebaker takes his trademark grainy, shaky cameras to Toronto's 1969 Rock And Roll Festival, which hosted 13 hours of music, legends and luminaries. Bo Diddley, Little Richard, Alice Cooper, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Doors and Chuck Berry were there. I could go on - and this isn't even mentioning the 20,000 people in the audience. According to legend (and all reports), concert promoter John Brower managed to get Lennon on the phone and somehow convinced him to perform, with just a day's notice. Lennon being Lennon, his backing band (which half-assedly rehearsed on the plane to Toronto) consisted of Eric Clapton, bassist/visual artist Klaus Voorman and drummer Mitch Mitchell. And, of course, Yoko Ono.
How does it stack up? Well, Pennebaker's visual style is far more appropriate and restrained in Live in Toronto '69 than in previous entry Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars: The Motion Picture. Beginning with exhilarating shots of the Lennons' motorcycle-gang escort leading them to the venue, it swiftly shifts into Bo Diddley's performance. At first you can only hear the famous steady beat, and then a pair of manic feet skipping across the stage and then, finally, the man himself shouting out his name and imploring the crowd to "do your own thing!" The performance is electric, alive and confident. But it's brief, only a single song. The same goes for Jerry Lee Lewis' take on "Hound Dog" and Little Richard's "Lucille," although the latter's mirrored jacket and insanely high pompadour nearly make up for it. Honestly, the man pulls off the human disco-ball look years before disco was even a coked-up gleam in Giorgio Moroder's eye.
When Lennon and the rest of the band take the stage, it's already dark. Apparently Lennon was nervous about his first live performance in three years and spent his time backstage vomiting. But as he steps up the mic, resplendent in a white leisure suit and bushy beard, he still has that cheeky charisma that supported him through the years. He's even genuinely funny as he counts of with a quick "ein, zweis, ein zwei drei fier!" or clownishly dances behind Yoko during her numbers. Pennebaker mercifully keeps the camera focused on the singer for most of the performance; the crowd shots are minimal, but that may have been due as much to the lateness of the hour as the director's intention. There's an occasional shot of Clapton (including an amusingly harassed glare to the camera during Yoko's performance) and a single long close-up of Mitchell on drums, but it's clear that everyone knows who the stars are.
The music? Acceptable. Blame it on nerves or a lack of experience. After all, Lennon had basically only ever played with a single band for his entire career and certainly wasn't in full-on Ed Sullivan form. A litany of anemic rock standards ("Blue Suede Shoes" and "Money" are both competent, if not thrilling) and his own edgier material ("Cold Turkey" is introduced as "one we've never played before") follow, and the performers certainly seem to be having a good time. But compared to the masters that briefly preceded them, it's tired and rote. It's hard to fault a genius, but sometimes it's just the truth.
And now the elephant in the room: Yoko Ono. I am generally positive and have no interested in flogging a horse so dead that recent archaeological evidence has exhumed its DNA from the ruins of Pompeii, but dear God. Her voice in Live in Toronto '69 can only be described as somewhere between a screech and a bleat, set to sluggish drones and eventual total feedback. Let's put it this way: late in her performance, the rest of the band (even Lennon) simply lean their guitars against the speakers and huddle together for a cigarette break. Seriously.
And that's kind of the thing about Live in Toronto '69 : such a collection of brilliance on stage, but everyone's so clearly all eager to get backstage and light 'em up.
Inevitable Rock Star Wankery
Yoko Ono appears in this film.
by Nathan Kamal