Waltzing
Stayed up late to watch The Last Waltz. What a lovely film. The Band's Let it Be - so full of warmth and love of music.
I've got it on DVD - so why stay up late to watch? Can't switch it off. So many highlights. People whose records I'd never buy. Dr John: ace. Neil Diamond: fantastic. Eric Clapton: just love that number, him and Robbie trading solos.
Van Morrison doing "Caravan": brilliant. And at the end, Bob Dylan comes on and starts with "Forever Young." He's supposed to have said - just before he went on - that he'd changed his mind about being filmed. And yet the whole night has this building-up-to-Bob-Dylan vibe. in the same way that the 1969 Woodstock concert was somehow predicated on the idea that Dylan "might" show up (why else name it after the place he lived rather than the place it was actually held?). Instead, perverse as ever, he played the Isle of Wight. With the Band.
The Last Waltz is Bob in his Rolling Thunder guise; looking more like a mystic Jew than at any other time in his life: his hair in ringlets, his nose with a seemingly more pronounced hook; the white hat. He looks fit and skinny, loose and lithe, comfortable on the stage. It's only, what, a couple of years since he last toured with them?
Neil Diamond's supposed to have walked off the stage after his superb song and said, "Follow that, Dylan."
Er, okay then. Whereas Diamond's song was tightly rehearsed and arranged, Dylan comes on and just plays with his band.
I love Robbie Robertson's guitar playing. He's got a Strat with it looks like just 2 pickups - humbucker at the bridge and single soil at the neck. The thing about The Last Waltz is that the band prove they can play anything with anyone, and sound like the best backing band any of those artists ever had. They do it all in an unusual self-effacing way - and yet their own songs are so beautiful, too. Rick Danko singing "It Makes No Difference" makes me cry every time I see it.
If you haven't seen this film, go out and buy it immediately on DVD. Approach without prejudice. It's not really about Bob Dylan. He does 3 numbers. You get Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and The Staples, too. Everything is equally brilliant, because the common element (The Band) makes it so.
I've got it on DVD - so why stay up late to watch? Can't switch it off. So many highlights. People whose records I'd never buy. Dr John: ace. Neil Diamond: fantastic. Eric Clapton: just love that number, him and Robbie trading solos.
Van Morrison doing "Caravan": brilliant. And at the end, Bob Dylan comes on and starts with "Forever Young." He's supposed to have said - just before he went on - that he'd changed his mind about being filmed. And yet the whole night has this building-up-to-Bob-Dylan vibe. in the same way that the 1969 Woodstock concert was somehow predicated on the idea that Dylan "might" show up (why else name it after the place he lived rather than the place it was actually held?). Instead, perverse as ever, he played the Isle of Wight. With the Band.
The Last Waltz is Bob in his Rolling Thunder guise; looking more like a mystic Jew than at any other time in his life: his hair in ringlets, his nose with a seemingly more pronounced hook; the white hat. He looks fit and skinny, loose and lithe, comfortable on the stage. It's only, what, a couple of years since he last toured with them?
Neil Diamond's supposed to have walked off the stage after his superb song and said, "Follow that, Dylan."
Er, okay then. Whereas Diamond's song was tightly rehearsed and arranged, Dylan comes on and just plays with his band.
I love Robbie Robertson's guitar playing. He's got a Strat with it looks like just 2 pickups - humbucker at the bridge and single soil at the neck. The thing about The Last Waltz is that the band prove they can play anything with anyone, and sound like the best backing band any of those artists ever had. They do it all in an unusual self-effacing way - and yet their own songs are so beautiful, too. Rick Danko singing "It Makes No Difference" makes me cry every time I see it.
If you haven't seen this film, go out and buy it immediately on DVD. Approach without prejudice. It's not really about Bob Dylan. He does 3 numbers. You get Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and The Staples, too. Everything is equally brilliant, because the common element (The Band) makes it so.
posted by Anonymous at
Saturday, September 24, 2005
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