Ravi Shankar planted the seed, but it was George Harrison who turned this historic benefit concert into reality. The publicity-shy former Beatle could’ve easily written a check and forgotten all about the matter–impoverished East Pakistani refugees stranded in India–but instead recruited some of his most talented and compassionate friends and created an event remembered as much for the quality of its music as the purity of its intent. (The two-part engagement itself raised $250,000.) The players include Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Leon Russell, and Bob Dylan, while the backing band includes Jim Keltner, Klaus Voormann, and the up-and-coming Apple band Badfinger (Phil Spector and Harrison produced). The concert took place on August 1, 1971 at Madison Square Garden and was released as a triple-album boxed set that December and a feature film in 1972. That year, it won the Grammy for best album. The program begins with Shankar and his trio (”Bangla Dhun”) and ends with a song Harrison wrote for the occasion (”Bangla Desh”). Highlights include Billy Preston’s rousing “That’s the Way God Planned It” and Dylan’s heartfelt five-song set, starting with “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” The remaster adds an additional Dylan track, “Love Minus Zero/No Limit,” from the afternoon show. Although the cover art has been changed to a picture of Harrison, the original iconic image of a sad-eyed child remains prominent in the CD and DVD packaging. As with previous versions of The Concert for Bangladesh, all artist royalties go to UNICEF or, as Harrison notes in his band introduction, “Nobody’s gettin’ paid for anything.” –Kathleen C. Fennessy
User Reviews
5 Stars The power of music
Rock can always contribute to a gentle cause in a unique manner. Real good music. Excellent performances by the artists. Sensational late 60’s -early 70’s. Buy it and listen to it.
5 Stars Holy shnike, what a concert
This is right up there with ‘The Last Waltz,’ Joe Cocker’s ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’ and the Dead closing the Winterland in ‘78 in my pantheon of concert DVDs, and it might be better than all of them. Two drummers are always better than one, even if one of those drummers IS Ringo Starr, rocking the freakiest beard I’ve ever seen (I’m actually reviewing the DVD, but it’s the same songs, soooo…).
But the setlist just rocks all to hell. It kicks into high gear with “Wah Wah,” as Harrison and Clapton peel licks off one another and the beat bangs out. Leon Russell, if I’m not mistaken, assembled most of this band as well as Cocker’s slapdash group, and I think a lot of the same musicians are here as well (Badfinger, “the Space Choir,” Leon himself).
The appearance of Bob Dylan doing a three-song set is icing on the cake, but the true showstopper is a “Jumping Jack Flash > Young Blood > Jumping Jack Flash” medley, sung by Russell, that plain and simple knocks the Rolling Stones’ version out of the park. A slick little riff after the chorus and the double-drum drive propels it beyond a bluesy rocker and into the stratosphere. I can seriously watch/listen to it over and over and not get tired of it.
A great buy.
5 Stars a great improvement over the vinyl box set
Besides the upgraded sound, the great thing about this cd edition is that all the music fits on two discs. The vinyl version averabed about fifteen minutes of music on a side, so you had to keep changing records to hear it. If I remember, the final side of vinyl was only two songs. Maybe ten minutes of music?
George Harrison is OUTSTANDING on this album. When he performs “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” you get the closest thing there is to a live Beatles performance at the end of their career, because with Eric Clapton present you have 3 of the five musicians who play on the White Album version. The Bob Dylan material is a wonderful acoustic performance.
The only negative is that the vinyl box set gave you a big book of photos, and here you have the little tiny booklet.
4 Stars CD is missing DVD songs and vice versa…
For sheer musical enjoyment, I give this five stars.
Wait, subtract one star for cynical marketing ploy:
The CD has an exclusive track Mr. Tambourine Man.
The DVD has two exclusive tracks, Come on in my kitchen, and If Not For You
Plenty of room to include these tracks on both formats,
but they want you to buy both the DVD and the CD versions.
4 Stars Concert for Bangledessh
Wow dose this bring me back it is sad that George n friends are all but forgotten by most
This show was epic and a wonderful snapshot in time
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