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One other thing about classic rock greatness and the lack of live footage:

Posted by: goodvibe61 on Feb 17, 09:52 in response to goodvibe61's post Becoming Led Zeppelin: A; Loudest I've ever heard it in...

One of the more fascinating things to me, about the whole mythology of the greatest rock and roll, is that specific absence of live performance footage. And this film confirms this problem yet again.

Two of my favorite movie going experiences of the past few years has been this doc, and that doc about The Beatles' Apple Records Building Rooftop concert. In both cases, when you watch it, if you're a big fan of the bands, it really harkens back to how there just isn't that much performance footage of the bands from back in the day. It shows you back then what people in pop culture felt about rock and roll. During the period of transition in western popular music, there was such a large feeling that rock and roll was not going to last very long. And the lack of stuff on film is a tragedy, because these bands became such a large part of people's lives.

I know with the Beatles film it's particualarly striking; since the band quit touring after the completion of the 1966 American tour, San Francisco being the last show they'd ever do together for a paying audience, and then there's NOTHING. So you think about the incredibly rapid development of the Beatles' music, from 1966 to the end, and there's zero footage of them performing any of it. No Sgt. Pepper stuff, no White Album stuff (no Helter Skelter, Revolution, and the like), no performances of any of the amazing/incredible studio stuff, whose production values were unmatched and would be unmatched by anyone, just about forever. There's just no footage of live performances because there were none. So watching a great copy of the rooftop gig is a real eye opener. It leaves you pining for what isn't there, nowhere to be found any concert footage of all that music. It's a huge thing for the history of rock and roll.

In Zep's case it's a situation in which the bands just did not pay for the recording of their music on film. Back in those days it was a very expensive proposition. And so, while there's plenty of audio recordings, from everyone ranging from tons of audience recordings to soundboards and the like, there's very, very little quality video or film recordings of all these staggering performances of rock and roll in the 60's and 70's.

If you're a fan of Bruce, or Pink Floyd, or The Stones; on and on, there's just not that much footage of shows on film or even on video, which just wasn't around at all. It's not that much time that's passed, into the latter part of the 20th century, when technology changed all that. Can you imagine these days, going to ANY show, and there aren't about a zillion IPHONES being held up over everyone's heads, recording what's going on up there on stage? It's become so tedious any more at shows, EVERYTHING is filmed for posterity, you can see anything. But it wasn't that long ago in which that simply was far from the case.

Have you been to any concerts where the artist restricts phone usage? I know about a few of the stellar Jack White concerts I've attended in the past decade he's done that, and it's a unique experience. No phones; you check them at the door, like it or not, that's how it is. And you retrieve them on the way out. And Jack professionally photographs the show and posts photos on his official website of the gig. Lots of young people can't live for 90 minutes without their damn phone. Too bad. I've found it to be fairly invigorating, and people like it or not are stuck of living in the moment instead of living via their device.

On the other hand, just think of all the Springsteen, U2, Stones, and Zeppelin concerts that would be Youtube these days if technology had permitted it back then.....

So Who Saw What Last Week? tealfan Feb 17, 09:21

Flow (A)...We Live In Time (A) tealfan Feb 17, 09:22

oh good I am hoping to get to Flow tonight or tomorrow night {nm} daveart Feb 17, 12:14

Civil War / Garland (C); our female party guest graded it (B) {nm} SenJohnBlutarsky Feb 17, 09:34

SNL 50 stuff (B for Boomer ****) {nm} uncle michelle Feb 17, 09:36

Me too: B. I thought last night's show was sort of a mixed bag and missed opportunity . Some of it was good though. goodvibe61 Feb 17, 09:57

which has been on brand for SNL from day one so hard to complain now {nm} uncle michelle Feb 17, 10:52

Becoming Led Zeppelin: A; Loudest I've ever heard it in the Irvine Spectrum IMAX. Wonderful. Great live footage. goodvibe61 Feb 17, 09:38

One other thing about classic rock greatness and the lack of live footage: goodvibe61 Feb 17, 09:52

Did you see the Queen concert movie? that was also fantastic. {nm} TheWeekendWarrior Feb 17, 10:43

I finally saw Wong Karwai's Chungking Express, which I quite enjoyed... B+. Otherwise, I've written about others on Substack/Letterboxd. {nm} TheWeekendWarrior Feb 17, 10:44

Queen Rock Montreal? I haven't seen it. Probably going to have to stream it, but I will. {nm} goodvibe61 Feb 17, 14:37