{"id":489,"date":"2011-04-12T05:04:49","date_gmt":"2011-04-12T10:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=489"},"modified":"2011-04-12T05:04:49","modified_gmt":"2011-04-12T10:04:49","slug":"dvd-review-concert-for-george","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/04\/12\/dvd-review-concert-for-george\/","title":{"rendered":"DVD Review: Concert for George"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Clapton<\/strong> and his pals made me cry. Really, they did. The moving all-star concert that was the Concert for George<\/em> brought together a group of musicians and performers, all of whom possessed two important qualities: they were excellent at their chosen task, and their lives were connected in some way to George Harrison<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The entire concept of a tribute concerts is fraught with peril. Too often such events descend into one of two kinds of disaster. They might come off as overly reverent, elevating the honoree to demigod status. An even worse situation is the one in which the event is used as a way of promoting a bunch of flavor-of-the-month artists mangling the work of the honoree: \u201cHere\u2019s Lady Gaga<\/strong> singing \u2018<\/em>Crackerbox<\/em> <\/em>Palace<\/em>!\u2019\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Thankfully neither of those distasteful scenarios was the case in November 2002 at London\u2019s Albert Hall. Instead a group of musicians — nearly all of whom will be very familiar to anyone who followed The Beatles<\/strong> or Harrison \u2013 turn in lovely, heartfelt songs from Harrison\u2019s deep catalog.<\/p>\n

When the then-surviving Beatles gathered in the mid 1990s to record some new music for their Anthology<\/em> project, Paul McCartney<\/strong> was on record explaining how they approached the recording sessions. Paraphrased, McCartney said that he, George and Ringo Starr<\/strong> met in the studio and engaged in the polite fiction that John Lennon<\/strong> had already laid down his parts to \u201cReal Love\u201d and \u201cFree as a Bird,\u201d but wouldn\u2019t be there that day. Their task was to finish the tracks. That approach allowed them to get on with the business of the sessions without getting too caught up in a reverent (and counterproductive) attitude.<\/p>\n

The performers in Concert for George<\/em> clearly adopted a similar sentiment when preparing for this show. The song arrangements closely follow the originals, leaving space for each of the featured players to make their mark. Yet the whole affair really sounds like a George Harrison concert (circa his 1992 Live in Japan<\/em> set) minus George himself. And this is a very, very good thing. Viewers are therefore not subjected to \u201creinventions\u201d of the man\u2019s songs, an approach that would only lessen their beauty. Instead we see Billy Preston<\/strong> lead \u201cGeorge\u2019s Band\u201d in a soaring version of \u201cIsn\u2019t it a Pity\u201d from All Things Must Pass<\/em>. Jeff Lynne<\/strong> pops up all over the show \u2013 and is always in fine form — but nowhere is he as effective as on a rare and ethereal performance of\u00a0 <\/span>the Beatles\u2019 \u201cLady Madonna\u201d b-side, Harrison\u2019s \u201cThe Inner Light.\u201d Lynne performs it on acoustic guitar, backed by a large complement of Indian musicians under the direction of Anoushka Shankar<\/strong> (sitar master and daughter of Ravi Shankar<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

The list of highlights is long. Old pal Ringo comes onstage to sing \u201cPhotograph\u201d and Carl Perkins<\/strong>\u2019 \u201cHoney Don\u2019t.\u201d Paul McCartney does \u201cFor You Blue\u201d from Let it Be<\/em>, and a tearjerking version of \u201cAll Things Must Pass,\u201d a song that The Beatles worked on endlessly but never released themselves. And the two-part \u201cSomething\u201d features McCartney\u2019s ukulele-led arrangement, segueing into a Beatles arrangement led by Clapton.<\/p>\n

The list of stars goes on and on. Procol Harum\u2019s Gary Brooker<\/strong> played on the All Things Must Pass<\/em> LP, and at this concert he covers \u201cOld Brown Shoe.\u201d An almost-version of the Traveling Wilburys<\/strong> (Tom Petty<\/strong>, Lynne, and Dhani Harrison<\/strong> plus Petty\u2019s band) faithfully recreates \u201cHandle With Care.\u201d<\/p>\n

And in keeping with George\u2019s dry yet irreverent sense of humor, members of Monty Python<\/strong> are on hand for \u201cThe Lumberjack Song\u201d (with Tom Hanks<\/strong> as one of the Mounties) and \u201cSit On My Face.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beatles fanatics will have fun playing spot-the-musician while watching this beautifully-filmed\u00a0 <\/span>and -recorded show. Klaus Voormann, Jim Keltner, Chris Stainton, Tom Scott, Ray Cooper, Jim Capaldi<\/strong> and Andy Fairweather-Low<\/strong> are among the stars onstage.<\/p>\n

Re-released on Blu-Ray in 2011, the Concert for George<\/em> is a two-disc affair. One disc includes the entire concert (kicking off with a long and lovely Indian music set, much like Concert for Bangladesh<\/em>). Disc Two contains the theatrical cut plus bonus material. Watching either cut, most viewers will catch themselves thinking, \u201cWow; I had forgotten just how many great songs George actually wrote.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a tribute, Concert for George<\/em> is note-perfect. As a concert event \u2013 as music \u2013 it\u2019s equally worthy. George surely would have approved, as will anyone with an appreciation of his work with and after the Beatles.<\/p>\n

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Eric Clapton and his pals made me cry. Really, they did. The moving all-star concert that was the Concert for George brought together a group of musicians and performers, all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvd","category-review","cat-25-id","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}