A concert film of John Lennon and Yoko Ono‘s monumental 1972 Madison Square Garden concert will hit cinemas this spring. The film, whose official title is longer than its running time, Power to the People: John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band With Elephant’s Memory and Special Guests – Live at the One to One Concert, New York City, 1972, will hit theaters on April 29 and May 3. Tickets go on sale March 20 via a special website for the film.
As every armchair Lennonologist and Onoologist knows, the former Beatle performed only two full concerts, the now legendary benefit gigs to raise a reported $1.5 million for developmentally disabled children, after the Fab Four broke up. Both took place on Aug. 30 with a truncated matinee preceding a full-length, star-studded extravaganza. Stevie Wonder, Roberta Flack, Melanie, and Sha Na Na all made appearances at the gig. The set list included “Give Peace a Chance,” “Imagine,” “Come Together,” and “Instant Karma!” among other hits.
Director Steve Gebhardt filmed the concerts, which originally came out as a 40-minute TV special, John Lennon and Yoko Ono Present the One-to-One Concert, and was later re-edited into the 55-minute John Lennon Live in New York City in 1986. Footage from the concerts was later used in Kevin MacDonald and Sam Rice-Edwards’ recent documentary, One to One: John & Yoko, which focused more on rehearsals and preparation for the concerts.
Power to the People, the new version, arrives via filmmaker Simon Hilton, who directed the Oscar-winning War Is Over! animated short, and will be a “multiscreen concert film.” The producers say every frame of film has been physically and digitally cleaned by hand and “restored, re-edited and remixed by” the Lennons’ son, Sean Ono Lennon. Some theaters will present the audio in Dolby Atmos or 5.1 Surround Sound.
“It was a concert that had a legendary status in my mind, because it was my dad’s last concert,” Sean said in a statement. “I remember wanting a Les Paul because he played Les Paul during that show. I feel very grateful I got to work on it because he did plan on touring and he didn’t get to, so all we’ve got is this concert.”
He added that he appreciates the concert since it went against the “slicker” concert productions of the early Seventies. “He just wanted to go back to basics and be raw and spontaneous and rock & roll,” Sean said. “It’s a very cool thing he was doing that was very against the grain. Maybe not everyone realizes how special it is for me to hear my dad talking or to see him. I grew up with a set number of images and audio clips that everyone’s familiar with. So to come across things that I’ve never seen or heard is really deep for me, because it’s almost like getting more time with my dad.”
Sean also produced last year’s box set, Power to the People, which compiled audio from the concerts. “You can hear that John is terrified, with a nervous gum-snapping edge in his voice that suits tough tales like ‘It’s So Hard’ and ‘Well Well Well,'” Rolling Stone wrote in a review. “You can also hear that the back-up sweathogs in Elephant’s Memory sincerely believe they’re qualified for this gig, with no qualms about showing off.”
The box set notably omitted “Woman is the N***** of the World,” which appeared on Live in New York City, from the track list. “It was Ono’s unfortunate title for a confrontational feminist message, though she could have gotten a better title out of the key line, ‘Woman is the slave to the slaves,'” Rolling Stone wrote in the review. “It’s the only moment on Sometime where Lennon faces up to his complicity as part of the oppression … The song meant enough to them to lead off the album [Some Time in New York City], with its lyrics front and center on the cover. But the song and its message get erased here.” A rep for the film did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone about whether or not it would be in the film.
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