The Last Waltz

It took me a long time to figure out The Band. I got a Best Of many years ago that I couldn't get to grips with at all but a few years ago I picked up The Last Waltz on DVD and it all fell into place. If you haven't seen it, you really should. I know it looks like a bunch of old crusty beardies (actually at the time I think they were younger than I am now!) singing strange songs about civil war veterans and alcoholic gamblers but there's so much to enjoy from the music and old road stories to the special guests (Van the Man!), not to mention the set design and Martin Scorcese's direction. You can pick it up for less than the price of 2 pints in town. I watched it again last night and have spent a bit of time this evening looking at other clips online..

Anyway, at Robbie Robert's instigation, it was supposed to be their last gig but the rest of them carried on for many years afterwards without him. Looking at footage on youtube it's kinda pathetic to see what became of them. Even after Richard Manuel killed himself in 1986, the others limped on without him through the 90s like a once-great fighter who's been beaten too many times but just doesn't know how to stop..

In the film, Rick Danko is the star of the show. Boyish good looks, pots of nervous energy (enhanced by drugs, I supppose) and the best voice in a band that was blessed with not one, but three great singers. And a fantastic musician of course. There's a heartbreaking sequence where he's interviewed by Scorcese in the months after the concert. Scorcese asks him what he's been doing since the last show and it becomes clear that apart from working on a solo record that was never going to amount to anything, he hadn't been doing much at all. As much as Robertson was sick of touring, it seemed that Danko and the others needed to be out on the road. I never got to see him - he played in Whelans shortly before he died in 1999 and I've always wished I'd gone to see him.. Tragic is probably pushing it a bit but it does seem a great shame that most of the artists that were guests at The Last Waltz - Dylan, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, Joni, Neil Diamond (eeek!), Emmylou Harris etc. are all still going strong but the musicians they were there to honour are either dead or long forgotten..

Anyway, in the film Robertson talks about why he was quitting touring. He says something about life on the road being an impossible life and he was getting out before it killed him. Look at this clip of Rick singing It Makes No Difference 20 years after singing the same song at The Last Waltz and you can't really blame him. Danko died in his sleep 2 years later. A real shame.