The concert for Bangladesh was one of the most important concerts in the history of the rock music. Not only was it a gathering of first rate stars like Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton or Ravi Shankar, but it signaled the start of the political involvement of musicians through the commercial power of their music in the benefit of big humanitarian causes. The example of Harrison was followed by scores of other musicians, and many events from the concerts for Etiopia in the 80s until the recent world wide events for ecological causes find their origins back there.
For these reasons a film to describe how this concert was organized, how artists responded and why some (including Paul McCartney and John Lennon) did not respond, and also maybe some of the eventful history of the concert film and disk in the years that followed the concert would be very interesting. It is not this film. We scarcely get maybe two minutes of background and the rest is the concert itself. Yes, there is a lot of splendid music going on including probably the best version of 'When the guitar gently weeps ...' ever done with Harrison and Clapton, but overall the filming of the concert is not very inspired, and the sound caption is mediocre. The real documentary about this moment in the history of rock and rock artists engagement in important causes is still to be made, making use of material from this film.
For these reasons a film to describe how this concert was organized, how artists responded and why some (including Paul McCartney and John Lennon) did not respond, and also maybe some of the eventful history of the concert film and disk in the years that followed the concert would be very interesting. It is not this film. We scarcely get maybe two minutes of background and the rest is the concert itself. Yes, there is a lot of splendid music going on including probably the best version of 'When the guitar gently weeps ...' ever done with Harrison and Clapton, but overall the filming of the concert is not very inspired, and the sound caption is mediocre. The real documentary about this moment in the history of rock and rock artists engagement in important causes is still to be made, making use of material from this film.