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This is a fantastic movie. One that you will see if you were alive and conscious back in ’69, and one you will see even if you were not. Because it contains John Lennon. When he took the stage my heart skipped a beat.
But it also shows how the music and the business used to be different. Two twentysomething concert promoters flying by the seat of their pants. They concoct an oldies festival and ticket sales tank but instead of canceling the show, they go to the head of the local motorcycle gang for the money, who appears all warm and fuzzy fifty-five years later and doesn’t remember much, but he coughs up the dough.
And they’re off to the races.
Only they’re not. The 25k they got from the kingpin was for the Doors, but Jim Morrison got arrested for indecent exposure right after the deal was made and tickets still don’t move.
So the local deejay said to fly in Rodney Bingenheimer and Kim Fowley to scare up business. But that doesn’t work either.
This is not only the days before mobile phones, never mind smartphones, but faxes, everything was done by the landline. And the promoters are told the only way they can save the gig is by getting John Lennon.
Yeah, right.
Benefit shows are de rigueur these days. If you haven’t been approached to play for free, you’re not a star. But everybody on the inside knows the linchpin comes last, the superstar is not going to commit unless their fellow superstars are in. Then the dam falls.
But this Rock and Roll Revival is headlined by people playing clubs, they were stars once, but Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley and Gene Vincent and Little Richard are not a draw for the boomers now hooked on FM rock. Believe me, no one from that demo cared, these performers were oldsters who truly didn’t get respect for at least another fifteen years. But John Lennon was older, these were his heroes.
So the promoter calls Apple.
Just imagine it, someone you don’t know calling the Beatles’ camp and his proffer being considered realistically, a pipe dream. Two nobodies from the Great White North are going to get John Lennon?
No one believes it, not CHUM radio, not even the outlaw biker.
But Lennon comes.
How do I know this? This was news back in ’69. And ultimately there was an album, entitled “Live Peace in Toronto 1969,” which was most notable for a version of “Cold Turkey,” which got radio airplay. But in an era where you had to buy it to hear it, I didn’t, but a friend did, and I listened. I can still see the cover in my mind’s eye, the cloud in the sky.
But I had no idea there was footage.
Oh, they’ve combed the vaults for a zillion rock documentaries. Oftentimes giving them the imprimatur of life-changing when that’s questionable at best, like “Summer of Soul,” or even the recent “The Greatest Night in Pop.” Both great flicks, worth seeing, but not the essence of rock and roll, they say they capture the zeitgeist, but they don’t.
“Revival ’69” does.
This is what young ‘uns can’t understand, how it used to be different. Not only were promoters young renegades, the acts were their contemporaries. Everybody was making it up as they went along. There was no VIP, food was hot dogs and popcorn. Hell, the music was enough. No production, just the act on stage. And watching this film you get it.
So there are two stories, the backstory, about putting on the concert, and the concert itself.
And the concert itself… Chuck Berry. This is not the bitter man of later years, sure, he’s employing a pickup band, but he’s smiling, he’s into it. And up close and personal you can see how good-looking he is.
And there are no tape recorders on stage, never mind hard drives. Meaning the music is imperfect, which bothered no one back then, it was expected, we didn’t want a movie, we wanted a one of a kind live experience, that lifted us into the stratosphere.
I saw Bo Diddley at a dance back in ’66, with his square guitar, did not move me, I wanted to hear the cover band, which played a killer version of the Beatles’ “I Want to Tell You.”
Gene Vincent? He died in 1971. I don’t think young ‘uns even know who he is.
But Little Richard. Man, you get it. He won’t go on stage until the lights are right. Because he understands it’s showbiz, a performance, it’s more than the music. As do all the performers. Their sheer will, along with the music, is employed to get the audience into the palm of their hands.
Little Richard has got his pompadour, and he hits the keys…
And I’ll never get over that exposé on Jerry Lee Lewis in “Rolling Stone” back in the day, but people forgot the contents of that article and he was recast as being warm and fuzzy as opposed to a hothead who was dangerous. But this performance? Absolutely incredible. He comes on stage looking like he’s ready for a golf tournament, he speaks with a Louisiana accent most attendees have never been exposed to, but when he tickles the ivories…
And then comes Lennon.
Oh, there’s a bunch of fake gravitas at the end of the flick, saying Kim Fowley invented the tradition of holding up matches and lighters during a show, and that this is the gig that broke up the Beatles. Fowley had to get the idea from somewhere, then again if he were still here Kim would take credit, that’s the kind of guy he was. And there was tension in the Beatles long before this gig. Then again, it’s the first live gig for Lennon in so long, and it’s solo. You get it, he doesn’t have to worry about anybody else, he’s the star, he’s in control, and it’s palpable how freeing that must have been.
But in any event, this was a Beatle on stage. Before “Abbey Road” was released. Before the band broke up. One cannot fathom how big the Beatles were unless you were there. Statistics don’t tell the story. It was all about mind-set and mindshare. EVERYBODY knew the Beatles, and most everybody knew their songs. It was a phenomenon, it was mania, and to have a Beatle live and in person right in front of you on stage? That’s equivalent to seeing God.
And this was back when we still believed. I must say, watching Mick Jagger on stage at Jazzfest… I mean come on, you’re 80, can’t you act your age? Instead of dieting down to nothing, working out and moving like you did fifty years ago? We aged, why can’t you? Mick’s frozen in time.
But he’s not the only one. It’s a rare musician who is not. Bowie tried, and let’s be clear, not everything he did resonated with the audience. Do you remember Tin Machine? Did you even listen to Tin Machine?
People have success and they’re afraid to change, and they end up becoming caricatures. I hate to say it, but Trump is a bigger rock star than anybody making music today. Because he does what he wants and thinks the rules don’t apply to him, like all the stars of yore. They were beacons, against a hypocritical, moribund society. No, don’t see this as an endorsement, but one can analyze and see truth. Kind of like Jon Stewart at the Greek Theatre on Friday night:
“‘I know liberals say, “Don’t say Joe Biden is old” — don’t say what people see with their own eyes! You can say it, he can’t hear us,’ he joked. I know you know how f*cking old he is, and I know you don’t want to say it because Trump is so scary, but he’s so f*cking old,’ Stewart said, adding, ‘When you watch him on television, you’re nervous, aren’t ya? ‘”
“‘I’m not saying that Biden can’t contribute to society, he just shouldn’t be president,’ Stewart continued, acknowledging that Trump is just as old, but commenting that his supporters don’t live in reality, and he can lie his way out of most things.”
That’s how bad it’s gotten, you can’t even speak truth. My inbox is going to go wild now, you can’t go against the team. But that was the thing about the rockers of yore, each was an individual beholden to no one, they did what they felt, what they wanted to, and that’s why we believed in them.
And the music.
Now how many times have you seen “Woodstock”?
Certainly more than once. And you’re going to watch “Revival ’69” more than once. At least once it hits the flat screen. It opens on June 28th. Will you go to the theatre to see it? People won’t even go see “Fall Guy” in the theatre, and that’s got Ryan Gosling and good reviews!
Yes, lockdown is in the rearview mirror. It killed magazines, “Rolling Stone” is monthly and marginal, behind a paywall. “Businessweek” went from weekly to monthly, “Entertainment Weekly” stopped publishing all together. I’ve stopped renewing my magazines, I’ve been burned too many times when they’ve gone out of business, or become digital only.
The theatre is passé, expensive appointment viewing of cartoons that don’t move the culture? Hell, the roast of Tom Brady on Netflix had more cultural impact than “Fall Guy,” than almost any recent picture, because it was raucous and real.
But it wasn’t rock and roll.
And it certainly wasn’t John Lennon. Who showed up in Toronto on a whim. Even Allen Klein his manager said he wasn’t coming, after all, wouldn’t he know?
The truth is we all knew back then. If you wanted to know which way the wind blew you turned on the radio and listened to a record. And if you wanted the ultimate visceral experience you went to see your favorite acts live.
And this film documents all that.
