Category Archives: Concert films

Concert films, Talking Heads

Happy birthday David Byrne – Talking Heads Live in Rome 1980

david byrne

David Byrne was born May 14, 1952, he is a Scottish-born musician permanently residing in the United States, and was a founding member and principal songwriter of the American New Wave band Talking Heads, which was active between 1975 and 1991. Since then, Byrne has released his own solo recordings and worked with various media including film, photography, opera, and non-fiction. He has received Grammy, Oscar, and Golden Globe awards and been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (wikipedia)

Few bands can boast a performance so image-defining as the one the Talking Heads did in Jonathan Demme’s Stop Making Sense.  That film was released in 1984. We will celebrate David Byrne’s birthday with another concert, Live in Rome. This concert film captures the Talking Heads in 1980, a less established band, a band on the rise. David Byrne and the rest of the band express the same kind of strange energy displayed in Stop Making Sense, but here they do it in a  more direct and “punkish” way.

Live in Rome 1980:

Setlist:
1. Psycho Killer 2. Stay Hungry 3. Cities 4. I Zimbra 5. Drugs 6. Take Me to the River 7. Crosseyed and Painless 8. Life During Wartime 9. House in Motion 10. Born Under Punches 11.The Great Curve

Live in Rome features the group’s full Afro-Funk  lineup. Additionally,  guitar virtuous Adrian Belew is on stage and he is fantastic!  It’s a great show and we’re hoping for a blu-ray release.

It was an exciting time to be in the band. david, chris, tina, and jerry decided to keep the 10-piece funk machine rolling for a whole world tour including japan and europe. it was a wacky cast of characters to live with and we had loads of fun.

…the timing of our performance was fortuitous; just as the sun was setting. I joined the original four heads to play psycho killer, then the full band was brought onstage. we launched right into the new material. no one in the audience even knew the remain in light record as yet but it didn’t matter. the band was smoking!

– Adrian Belew

Enjoy David Byrne and Talking Heads at their very peak!

– Hallgeir

Concert films, Great albums, List, Live, The Kinks

30 Best live albums countdown: 28 – One for the road by The Kinks

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One for the road 1

A double album from a criminally underrated period in The Kinks’ carreer is number 28, One for the Road.

The Kinks‘ U.S. career never flourished like that of their British Invasion peers, but that’s another and very interesting story. The Kinks is the quintessentially British band – especially in the nostalgic bittersweet songs of vocalist/rhythm guitarist Ray Davies.

one for the road 4

The Kinks enjoyed arise in popularity in the U.S. in the late ’70s and early ’80s. The gold-selling 1980 double-live album One for the Road is a fascinating document of english gentlemen who paved the way for heavy metal and punk, but always made great pop songs.
This album is my choice for the 28 place on my countdown of the 30 best live albums.

It may be considered an odd choice. partly because many felt that Kinks was over the top at the time and also because they was seen as strangely unmodern, especially in Europe. But that dosn’t matter, I discovered Kinks at this time (two years later actually), we were fed great concerts from Germany’s Rockpalast TV-show and The Kinks was one of the bands that came through our TV sets. I was mainly into punk and new wave but two bands felt very right, even if they were very old (in our eyes at the time), namely The Who and The Kinks. They were just as New Wave as anything we heard at the time. My love for both those bands is an everlasting one, and I have dug into their past eagerly.

One for the road 2

One for the road also proves that Dave Davies is an extremely underrated lead guitarist. The guitar sound is very “punk like”. I belive Sex Pistols learnt a great deal from Kinks, both the guitar style (listen to Where have all the good times gone and Pressure) and the way Ray Davies delivered his lyrics. Brothers Dave Davis and Ray Davies, bass guitarist Jim Rodford, drummer Mick Avory, and guest keyboardists Ian Gibbons and Nick Newell recorded One for the Road at several concerts in 1979 and 1980.

One for the road 3 - lola (live)

Lola is the best-known track from this album, and this live performance was a minor hit single; Ray Davies’ teasing intro shows his playful side. Listen to the Spotify album at the bottom of the post and you will know what I’m talking about.

Lola:

The Hard Way, Low Budget, a raw, stripped-down Superman, Celluloid Heroes, and You Really Got Me are the other fantastic songs on this album. They may be faster or slower or very different, but they are just as good as their studio album counter parts. I also love the riff on Catch me now I’m Falling, where did they get that one? He, he.

Superman:

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Beatles, Classic Concert, Concert films, Music Calendar

Today: The Beatles played the Rooftop concert, Apple building 30 Jan 1969

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rooftop1

“I’d like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we passed the audition” – John Lennon 

Trying to come up with a conclusion for the film, Let it be, it was suggested that the band play an unannounced lunchtime concert on the roof of the Apple building. On 30 January, The Beatles with Preston played on the rooftop in the cold wind for 42 minutes, about half of which ended up in the film.

The songs performed in the Rooftop concert, Apple building:

  • Get Back (5 versions)
  • I Want You (She’s So Heavy)
  • Don’t Let Me Down (2 versions)
  • I’ve Got A Feeling
  • One After 909
  • Danny Boy (in between the main songs)
  • Dig A Pony (2 versions)
  • God Save The Queen (incompl.)
  • A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody (between main songs)

The Concert:

The Beatles started with a rehearsal of “Get Back,” then played the five songs which are shown in the film. After repeating “I’ve Got a Feeling” and “Don’t Let Me Down,” takes which were left out of the film, the Beatles are shown in the film closing with another pass at “Get Back” as the police arrive to shut down the show.  (Wikipedia)

The songs were used as a whole or in parts on the album, in the film and later on Anthology 3 and on the re-release/reworking of Let it be, Let it be…naked.

The Apple building concert was the first live gig since The Beatles stopped touring 29. August 1966 (tired of  screaming girls and not beeing able to hear themselves through the screams) and it was to be their last. It’s a fantastic show, sweet and short, really makes us long for more. It gives us a glimpse of what could have been, and it shows us what a magnificent live band they were.

rooftop2

 “We went on the roof in order to resolve the live concert idea, because it was much simpler than going anywhere else; also nobody had ever done that, so it would be interesting to see what happened when we started playing up there. It was a nice little social study.

We set up a camera in the Apple reception area, behind a window so nobody could see it, and we filmed people coming in. The police and everybody came in saying, ‘You can’t do that! You’ve got to stop.'” – George Harrison (Anthology)

Whatever animosity there was between the four guys it doesn’t show, it looks like they have the time of their life, it is a magnificent live farewell.

It is also one of the most bootlegged shows in rock’n roll history, both on audio and film.

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rooftop_dvd

Let’s hope for an official Let it Be Blu-Ray release, maybe with the rooftop concert as a separate extra feature (with all available footage).

Other January 30:

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Concert films, Country, Rock, Video

Dawes Live at WNCW 13th of June 2012

It’s not some message written in the dark,
Or some truth that no one’s seen,
It’s a little bit of everything.

The California-based quartet Dawes has  made a name for themselves with their great harmonies and songwriting.  With roots in the great Laurel Canyon sound of Gram Parsons, David Crosby, Jackson Browne, and other 70’s west-coast icons, bandmates Taylor Goldsmith, Griffin Goldsmith, Wylie Gelber and Tay Strathairn went into WNCW’s Studio 13th of June for a great performance and talk about Middle Brother, Robbie Robertson, and of course their own great recordings.

Dawes was a great discovery for us in 2011 and they just keeps getting better.

The fantastic Million Dollar Bill:

Interview about songwriting, Middle Brother and more:

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Concert films, Funk, Soul, Video

Soulful performances from Bonnaroo 2012

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings

Today we have picked three performances from this year’s Bonnaroo festival. Three bands that are som funky, so tight, so good that it’s hard to describe it. So just enjoy these videos, they do the artists more justice.

First out is the great Sharon Jones with the fantastic Dap-Kings. They feel retro but really fresh at the same time. I had the pleasure of seeing them in Oslo last year and in a few weeks I’ll see them again, this time at Bergenfest.

He Said (funky as hell!):

Alabama Shakes:


Next band out is the “up and coming” Alabama Shakes. Just as much a rock band as a soul outfit, but this song is soul as good as any!
Last year at this time the Alabama Shakes were only dreaming of playing a packed Bonnaroo tent. The reality at Bonnaroo 2012 was that they rocked the festival just right!

Be Mine:

Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires:

Last but not least we present Charles Bradley and his Extraordinaires. Gonna see them three times the next few months, it’s going to be fantastic.

This band doesn’t care if they’re playing for 5,000 people or just five, Charles Bradley and his companions are in it to perform and completely brings the house down!

Heartaches and Pain:

– Hallgeir