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A DVD version, set for release on May 7, offers performances from the concert not seen in the original and commentary by musicians and critics.

I can't wait!

Musical 'ping'.

I remember seeing "The Last Waltz" in a theatre at the time of its release. Now, I was never a fan of The Band...........but the film just knocked me out. Tremendous performances; such skill on display. These people...........all of them.............were/are musicians, not just "rock stars" or "performers". I'd definitely like to see it again.

I remember seeing Neil Diamond -- yes, Neil Diamond! -- singing along on stage on The Last Waltz.

Something along the lines of Hendrix opening for The Monkees.

Interesting that Mr. DeCurtis, normally one of the more historically knowledgeable of music critics, doesn't mention why it actually was that the Band happened to have been free to accept Bob Dylan's first call in the first place: their would-have-been employer had just died - blues legend Sonny Boy Williamson. The then-Hawks were in Arkansas for some club gigs when they heard Sonny Boy was back in town from England (he'd actually come home to die; until his final illness he thought seriously of moving to England permanently), sought him out, and asked if they could just play some music together. According to members of the Band, they got on famously enough that Williamson was ready to make them his backing group for a round of dates in the South and the East, until he became too sick to perform and died in March 1965. They realised how sick Williamson actually was when they notice him spitting into a can while they played and realised it wasn't tobacco juice, it was blood.

I liked The Last Waltz, but I'm afraid I'm spoiled to this day by a far superior performance - Rock of Ages, the Band's New Year's Eve show at the Academy of Music, augmented by a horn section arranged by Allen Toussaint. They roll and tumble through a very transcendent set of most of their signature music, and finish off with a touch of rocking grace - an ironic cover of Chuck Willis's "(I Don't Want To) Hang Up My Rock and Roll Shoes," a choice that reflects their ambivalence about the stage and touring life exquisitely, from the old-time New Orleans horn riff that kicks it off to the almost bittersweet howl Robbie Robertson lets go to sing the final verse:

Some might even say it put the devil in my soul
but that's a bunch of shit - I just wanna rock and roll!
I don't want to hang up my rock and roll shoes.
I don't want to hang up my rock and roll shoes.
I get that old time feelin' every time I sing the blues.

That was an eerie choice for a show closer in more ways than one, when you consider Chuck Willis, who wrote the song and had the posthumous hit with it, was thirty years old when he cut that for the B-side of "What Am I Livin' For" - and that he'd be dead (of peritonitis) before he could see both sides of the single become hits (selling over a million copies on the run of "What Am I Livin' For" alone, then nearly matching 500,000 by way of "Rock And Roll Shoes"...).

Bump for the greatest band no one ever heard of.
I'm still waiting for the second coming of Ophelia.