Prick Tunes: The Band Live in Pittsburgh, 1970

Closing out the week, it makes sense to show concert footage of The Band at their apex. Filmed during a concert at The Syria Mosque in Pittsburgh on November 1st, 1970. It's fucking amazing. There are four songs performed here: "Time to Kill," "The Weight," "This Wheel's on Fire," and "Up on Cripple Creek."

Prick Tunes: The Band Live on New Year's Eve 1983

Levon Helm Tribute Week rolls on here at Inconsiderate Prick. Today, we have a full concert of The Band.

So maybe this isn't from an era in which The Band were on amicable terms with Robbie Robertson, but this is a 1:14:53 full concert of The Band still featuring Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, and of course Levon Helm. The Band opened for The Grateful Dead at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium that night.

Even without Robertson, this concert is outstanding.

Here's the setlist:
"Rag Mama Rag"
"Long Black Veil"
"The Shape I'm In"
"It Makes No Difference"
"Milk Cow Blues"
"Mystery Train"
"King Harvest (Has Surely Come)"
"Stage Fright"
"W.S. Walcott Medicine Show"
"You Don't Know Me"
"Caledonia"
"Genetic Method / Chest Fever"
"Java Blues"
"Willie & The Hand Jive"

Prick Tunes: Drive-By Truckers and Megafaun "The Weight"

Artwork by Wes Freed

On the night that Levon Helm passed away, two of my favorite bands paid tribute to a man who work has clearly influenced both of their musical catalogs heavily. I could say more but there isn't much reason to say more than Megafaun join Drive-By Truckers on stage to close out the first encore of a show in Carrboro, North Carolina in a joyous and raucous way with "The Weight."


And here's Megafaun from a show in Norfolk earlier last week covering "I Shall Be Released," a Bob Dylan song first released by The Band on Music from the Big Pink. They first recorded it a year earlier with Dylan during The Basement Tapes session, but it wasn't released by Dylan until it made an appearance on Greatest Hits, Vol. II. I'm going to embed two versions. The first has an introduction. The second does not, but the audio is a bit crisper (though it does have more of the "talking dipshit factor" working against it).

With intro:


Slightly better audio clarity:

Prick Tunes: The Band "The Weight"

Note: for the second time this week, I scheduled a post to go up at noon and it didn't go up. Get yer shit together Blogger.

Shortly after I posted yesterday's entry, Levon Helm passed away.

Levon Helm was the heart and soul of The Band. It was his having grown up in the Delta that lent an air of legitimacy to the brand of Americana that his Canadian bandmates wanted to spin. It was his voice that felt most at home in that sound, that hearkened to the time and place they were trying to embody.

While The Last Waltz may not be the ideal way to view The Band, it is probably the best quality video we've got.

You will be missed, Levon.

Prick Tunes: Levon Helm "Poor Old Dirt Farmer"

News came out yesterday that Levon Helm is about to succumb to cancer, a disease that has been a central part of his life since he first found that he'd gotten throat cancer in the 1990s. In recent years, it was assumed that he had beaten the throat cancer as he'd begun recording and touring again, putting out the two stellar proper albums Dirt Farmer and Electric Dirt in 2007 and 2009 and the live hoot album Ramble at the Ryman in 2011. Robbie Robertson assumed the same, releasing this statement about his former bandmate:

Last week I was shocked and so saddened to hear that my old band mate, Levon, was in the final stages of his battle with cancer. It hit me really hard because I thought he had beaten throat cancer and had no idea that he was this ill. I spoke with his family and made arrangements to go and see him.
On Sunday I went to New York and visited him in the hospital. I sat with Levon for a good while, and thought of the incredible and beautiful times we had together. It was heartwarming to be greeted by his lovely daughter Amy, whom I have known since she was born. Amy’s mother, Libby Titus, and her husband, Donald Fagen, were so kind to help walk me through this terrible time of sadness. My thoughts and prayers are with his wife Sandy.
Levon is one of the most extraordinary talented people I’ve ever known and very much like an older brother to me.  I am so grateful I got to see him one last time and will miss him and love him forever.
Robbie Robertson
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/robbie-robertson-levon-helm-is-like-an-older-brother-to-me-20120418#ixzz1sVUPfppr

A couple years back, I got the chance to see Levon Helm. Under doctor's orders he wasn't allowed to sing, a fact that I definitely viewed as a red flag at the time, but seeing him at the time was still such a pleasure, as he still had such a luminary presence on stage.

I'm glad I got to see him when I did as he brought so much joy to the show. His work with Bob Dylan, The Band, and on his own goes down as some of the most impressive in the history of rock music. He will be missed.