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Great films of gigs

Predictably, I think the White Stripes at Blackpool is ace. You miss out on the physical wall of sound that was the experience of seeing them live, mind

I really miss them :(
 
Speaking of Granada TV, The Doors Are Open was another good one of theirs. They go a bit mad cutting riot footage into it and stuff but it's a good film of The Doors at The Roundhouse. There's not much decent Doors footage out there, funnily enough. The Hollywood Bowl DVD gets them on a bit of an off night and other bits and pieces are only good in places.
 
TruXta said:
Johnny Cash - At San Quentin. Fucking ace, hair-raising atmosphere in the room.
Roy Orbison - A Black and White Night. Featuring Springsteen, Costello, Tom Waits etc. Say no more!
Bob Dylan - Don't Look Back. Up there with the best, even if you're not a die-hard Dylanite. Strictly speaking a tour docu.
Woodstock (the movie). The Hendrix footage is waaaaay out there, maaaan. Is it true he had an acid stamp pressed against his forehead under his bandanna?
Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl. It's got songs in it...
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only the first counts as a film of a gig.

good choice tho

never been convinced by the Doors Are Open, good moments, the whole thing, a bit meh
 
plenty of torrents of "ladies and gentlemen....the rolling stones" from their 72 or 73 american tour and is by far the only stones live gig your ever likely to need / want. i loves it anyway and compared to that new scorsase one that came out last year it blows it away.
 
New Order's 316 is quite good... a DVD split between an early 80s NY gig and their 1998 Reading Festival return. Two different styles, two completely different venues with very different crowds. Plus a completely bonkers version of Temptation on the first.

On the split side, the A Night With Lou Reed DVD is terrible. Instead of presenting his performance as an whole, they skip the talking and banter bits between songs, and present the concert almost into youtube-friendly clips. And well, knowing Lou Reed, that was half the performance.
 
isitme said:
The Band - The Last Waltz

it's directed by Scorcese and it has loads of cool interviews with The Band in that cool 70s Scorcese style between the songs, and the songs are thoroughly decent as well :cool:
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Yep, if you like old person music it's pretty close to perfection.
 
Guitar Wolf - Live at the world is pretty entertaining. Red Idol is a more cinematic event with interviews and videos mixed in.

Maybe my favorite Guitar wolf offering are the recordings made on a very early tour of the US playing in hopeless dives (and peoples living rooms) to pretty much nobody - DVD free with Mars Twist.

Anyone seen Maximum Penetration by Pussy Galore? An official release with a photo copied cover on a blank VHS. Almost unmatchable, and I like that sort of shit. Even an appearance on a TV show is black and whiteifyed and fucked up with fuzz.
 
belboid said:
I knew someone would say that.

The live stuff is good, but Bobby wandering round pretending to be a knight? Jeeeesus.
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There's a really good full concert from Led Zep at I think the Albert Hall. It comes up if you put 'Led Zeppelin 1970' into the YouTube search.

Much better playing than on Song Remains the Same, I guess 'cos Pagey wasn't as far into the smack back then.
 
belboid said:
only the first counts as a film of a gig.

good choice tho
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What ya mean only the first counts - the Orbison film is just the gig filmed straight through with hardly any cuts?:confused:
Pretty much the same for the Python, although it's straining the concept of "musical performance".
 
TruXta said:
What ya mean only the first counts - the Orbison film is just the gig filmed straight through with hardly any cuts?:confused:
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same as Last Waltz, it isn't really A gig, its lots of different artists coming on and joining in. You watch for the other artists, not for Orbison.
Pretty much the same for the Python, although it's straining the concept of "musical performance".
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quite, hence i rule it out.

If we were having tht I'd include the brilliant performance and Bluebeard's Castle that Michael Powell filmed. but that'd just be silly.
 
belboid said:
You watch for the other artists, not for Orbison.
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That's rather presumptious isn't it - personally I watch(ed) it for The Orb hisself, his songs, and the other guys are just a bonus. It seems to me you're operating with a rather limited definition of what constitutes A Proper Gig - along the lines of "if they've got guests it's not APG".
 
fair enuf, tho there's a big difference between having a guest and having a string of them, imo. Thats not a gig, its a TV special
 
Yeah, I'm not saying it was just like any other gig you might see. I'm just a bit stumped as to your seeming insistence that because it was a TV special, it cannot have been a gig. Since when were the two mutually exclusive?
 
since i said so :p

but they are inherently different. the way the performer interacts with the audience most obviously, the filming too tho, and to a lesser extent lighting and sound.
 
But that's about the same as saying that because two outfits playing at two different venues in front of two different audiences, with different AV systems and different whatnots AREN'T EXACTLY THE SAME, they're not both gigs... Which is plainly bollocks. :hmm::rolleyes::cool:
 
no, its nothing like tht. They are completely different things.

Its fairly simple really, TV shows are made to be showen on TV, the performer can just sit there and their own thing and let the medium do all the work, with a genuinely live performance, the performer has to work to reach all of the audience, from the front row to the back. TV has no back row.
 
nowt def guv, but if you're interested, well we could do with some dosh at least as soon as and it should be sortable
 
With all due respect belboid I think that's a totally arbitrary distinction. I'm not saying there aren't differences in the production values and maybe even the approach of the artist in a TV production vs a "normal" gig, but to hold these distinctions up as markers of a totally different set of events strike me as pedantic and wrong. What about a gig that's being filmed for later release as a concert film? Where does that land in your system? Is that not a gig either?
 
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