May 082008
From a 1969 ABC TV show called Music Scene…how many features from this performance have been lacking in live music performances on tv for some time?
This is not to say that there’s never a great musical performance on tv these days. Not including television broadcasts of rock films and documentaries, what’s the most recent original tv rock performance you’ve seen that knocked your socks off?
That’s easy – NBC’s Sunday Night/Nightmusic with David Sanborn. After it’s run ended in the US, Jools Holland, co-host for one season, took it to the UK, where it still runs.
It was wildly original, one episode had Nick Cave backed by Charlie Haden with a jazz version of Hey Joe, another paired Conway Twitty with the Residents.
Clips:
http://easydreamer.blogspot.com/2007/05/night-music.html
http://idolator.com/tunes/acceptable-in-the-.80s/a-little-night-music-the-best-of-david-sanborns-late+night-benders-279657.php
Background:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_Night
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094558/
Sorry, in comparison to that Sly and the Family Stone clip I’m coming up with nothing. That’s one of the most exciting things I’ve ever seen. So well shot too, I love all those cutaways into the faces of the dazed and jubilant audience. Amazing. I’m not sure how anyone can segue into a anecdote about the Raconteurs on Jimmy Kimmel after seeing that.
The ability to archive and make accessible this single clip justifies the entire existence of the internet.
prince at the superbowl a year or 2 ago
I remember seeing Sonic Youth and the Indigo Girls and David Sanborn all playing I Wanna Be Your Dog together on that show. I’m not a big fan of any of those guys but I thought the cross pollination was cool.
And that’s a good call about Prince at the Super Bowl. I was expecting a lame, phoned-in, halftime performance but he really kicked ass. In the pouring rain no less.
I’m with db and Al, that Sly clip is just incredible. Pure joy and liberation delivered directly to the hearts (and feet) of the audience members. I totally did not get Sly at the time, and it’s hard to imagine how I could have been so blinded by my other musical obsessions. Probably the vast popular appeal of this music threw me off.
The most recent, and it’s not very recent, thing I’ve seen that was comparable in impact was Neil Young singing Rocking in the Free World on SNL, but that’s got to be 20 years ago. A little more recent, and not rock, was some kind of songwriter’s night on Austin City Limits, and watching Steve Earle play Fort Worth Blues, dedicated to Townes Van Zandt sortly after Townes had died, and make Nanci Griffith cry. That was really something.
The only relatively recent thing I can think of was the Katrina benefits concerts, and that was personal. And Arcade Fire (on Austin City Limits too?) was pretty impressive.
I’ve already mentioned NRBQ’s jaw-droppingly blistering rendition of “Get Rhythm” as performed on Ralph Emery’s old school TNN talk show. The audience clearly — and literally — had no idea what hit them. There was a good two seconds of total silence after the Q finished, and then tumultuous applause. You just can’t keep a good song down, no matter how weird the band looks to you.
Another fave of mine was LL Cool J’s comeback performance/slugfest on MTV Unplugged. I chanced upon this by accident while channel surfing in the 80s, and it was riveting. I wish the whole “Mama Said Knock You Out” sequence was on YouTube, but this is all that’s out there. You’ll just have to take my word for the fact that the pacing of the show — the way it built from a glowing ember to a white phosphorous intensity — was just amazing. It culminated in the “Mama Said…” number, and by then the audience was just fucking insane. That was the moment I realized LL was totally for real. Anyway, here’s a clip which jumps from the start of the show to the end, and perhaps it’ll give you an idea of what I saw that day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=608RHxcgFsU
Yeah, speaking of Prince, his looong guitar solo on While My Guitar Gently Weeps with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Jeff Lynne during a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony a few years back. That was mind-blowing.
And speaking of the Superbowl, U2 doing Beautiful Day a couple of years ago.
Great suggestions so far, Townspeople. I still like watching that show that Jools Holland hosts. We’ve been getting it on some surprisingly good “arts” channel.
I’m still trying to think of what the most recent tv performance was that knocked my socks off to any degree. Maybe Steve Earle playing live with the bluegrass band, Del Coury Band, or some name like that. They were all gathered around one mic. I don’t have the slightest taste for bluegrass, but seeing them do it live – on tv – was sock knocking.
Randy Newman’s “Louisiana 1927” opening a Katrina benefit.
Pink Floyd at Live8.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=0wtiNzci1Wc
Kanye West’s “Jesus Walks” at the Grammys.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Kx58OT8og0I
Blur performing “Out of Time” on Letterman.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=xdMUgMPWnVU
A ten-minute version of “Where It’s At” by Beck on the ’90s-era PBS show Sessions at West 54th.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=LCSlYlCJ38g
Dave Grohl sitting in with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on SNL.
I was taken by this performance by Mute Math on the Letterman show a while back:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4r6M22oTao
On record, not so exciting – and I think the excitement of the performance covers up the blandness of the song. So, instead of the “the singer, not the song”, this is “the performance, not the singer or the song”.
Would love to see the NRBQ clip – I’ve been trying to find a clip of them doing “Crazy like a fox”, I think it was on SNL. It was on you Tube, but I can no longer find it. Bummer.
I’ve never seen a clip of a Sly performance that didn’t make an impact on some level – even his ludicrous Grammy tribute appearance from the last few years was exactly what it should have been, all things considered – but this clip has to be the best. Everything about that is amazing, starting with the band’s formation on stage down to specific audience members, like the guy who looks like Roger Thomas at about 1:25 in.
Prince at the Super Bowl is probably the last truly great one off the top of my head, but I’m glad Steve mentioned the Hall of Fame performance, which blew even that away. A clip of that might warrant one of those minute-by-minute examinations on RTH at some point, because there are quite a few moments of greatness going on there.
Oats mentioned Kanye’s Grammy performance, which was a truly great display of televised theater. I thought his turn at Live8 worked, too, with his cello section. I also remember being shocked at Deep Purple when they turned up on Live8, but that was probably more about them sounding surprisingly good than giving a great performance.
Good call on the LL Cool J unplugged from hrrundi. In a way, that kind of ruined Unplugged for me because nobody ever did anything more interesting than that with the concept. I haven’t had a chance to re-watch the video yet, but I remember LL and his piano player going to town.
That Jools Holland show is on Comcast On Demand for free in Philly. Excellent show
I really enjoyed that clip. I was never a big fan of them, but I liked that enough that I bet I planted a seed that may grow into an actual purchase at the record store one day.
I want to second Mr. Mod on the Steve Earle thing. I saw that, and it came on late on a work night and I think I stayed up until 3:30 watching it. I’m not a fan of that bluegrass and ensemble singing, but I was so blown away by what they were doing with just one microphone for everyone to sing and play into. It was really something.
I have to look for something else that stuck in my head. If I find it, then maybe I’ll believe it really happened.
I found it. It’s not quite as cool as I remember, but then I was 11. I had to watch a lot of these to find one that made it all the way to the end, but I thought it was so cool when the drummer jumped over his drum set. Actually, I have to admit, I still think it’s cool!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDCctMvBIFs&feature=related
I love that Golden Earring clip, 2K! Good one.
Now regarding one of the write-in votes on today’s poll, I can assure you that Mr. Mod would fit right in with the studio audience dancing to the music in this clip. Would I be as cool as “Rahj,” as Alexmagic aptly described him, at the 1:20 mark? Certainly not! But I’d be a little bit cooler than the guy in the blue shirt at the right side of the stage when the crowd first joins the band in that loving, far-out show of humanity that follows Sly’s pulling the girl and her ready-to-boogie friend onstage. You know which guy I mean. The one who dances like the kid even Charlie Brown felt comfortable giving a wedgie. I’m a better dancer than that guy, and the beauty of that clip is just that rainbow mix of dancers.
Consider this an APB for anyone who was actually in that crowd to enter the Halls of Rock and tell us how it felt that day.
When the camera pans across the audience, you can see some people who do not have the best sense of rhythm. The cool thing about the clip is that those people are equally transported by the music, and the best dancers are too busy getting down to mock anyone. The glory of Sly’s music was its inclusiveness.
And btw Larry Graham’s hat rules. And his thumb.
That is an excellent clip. There performance is amazaing.
I would have loved for them to have panned to the crowd and shown a few “looks of horror” during the song….er…..between “Hot Fun in the Summertime” and “I want to take you higher” That was a bold move for Sly to play that. They did seem to focus on white horn player during that segment.
Let’s cut to the chase and stop being so prudish about it – but I respect your show of respect, Andyr: “Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey” is the song title you allude to and Sly was up front about it for a reason. Do you think he’d want us to skirt around the song title, if he knew what was going on anymore? To me, what’s even more shocking than their playing the song is ABC’s broadcasting of it! How many times have we had to watch rock docs with the “shocking” story of Jim Morrison singing “higher” in “Light My Fire”? Is there any truth in that story, or was that all part of the campaign to add cool cred to what was often only a semi-cool band? I don’t recall Music Scene as a little boy. Was it the Fridays of its time? Because of that this performance has been unknown to me – a diehard rock nerd for all these years. And where’s the salacious censorship story surrounding this performance? Like Fridays, if this is any indication of the quality of musical performances this show had to offer, then someone’s got to acquire the rights, dust off the video reels, and transfer this stuff to DVD.
By the way, I should note that I was tipped off to this performance while reading Sly: the Lives of Sylvester Stewart and Sly Stone. Author Eddie Santiago expects to join the Halls of Rock for a chat in the coming weeks!
Prince was incredible. U2 and their Superbowl performance gave me goosebumps. I didn’t know whether to cry or pump my fists.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=gq08ouOwiqQ
I may take heat for this bubblegum metal, but Andrew W.K. playing “Party Hard” on SNL a few years back was fuckin awesome,
http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1344621819&channel=1321733701
Song is catchy. The commitment to Mach Shau by the whole band is great. Hair whips kick ass. I had taped it when it was first on, and I watched it 5 times in a row. After my IQ had dropped and testosterone rose to the appropriate levels, I ran out of the house and picked a fight with a random stranger like in Fight Club!
Wow Chickenfrank! Nice find!
I gotta love the black socks with white sneakers on one of the guitar players.
Hmmm…I love Sly and the Family Stone and all but I’m not seeing anything particularly “special” about this clip…
GREAT MOMENT, Chickenfrank! I’d forgotten about that. It’s also one of the only examples of muscles working in rock, which is something I said did not go with rock just a week or two ago. I love how even the piano player has muscles.
Those big Prince performances really hit home for a lot of Townspeople, understandably.
Did Glenn Danzig possibly inspire a mini-genre — muscle metal?
And whatever you think of Henry Rollins’ music, his build seemed to work with what he was trying to do.
I think you’re right about Danzig, BigSteve. Also, you’re definitely right about Rollins’ muscles backing up his music.
There are so many things that make me laugh and pump my fist about this performance – at the beginning, the British Oi looking bassist, rather than use the bass as an extended phallus, raises it out of the way so as not to obscure his pelvic thrusts. – the cookie monster back up gang vocals – Andrew’s caveman grunting solo in the middle – even the keyboard player doing head whips at the end – and everyone maintains a superwide stage stance throughout the song to allow their testicles some rockin freedom. When it’s time to party, we will party hard, indeed.