Catch a Cannonball

Sometime last Summer a couple of my friends and I were hanging out watching TV and on a whim I put on my friend’s copy of The Last Waltz to watch the above performance of “The Weight.”

Very few times has a piece of music or film sent real chills up and down my spine. It happened to me when I heard the cascading refrain to Radiohead’s “Subterranean Homesick Alien” (uptiiiieeeettt) and it happened again when I watched The Band play this song at their farewell concert on Thanksgiving Day, 1976.

I didn’t really know very much about The Band until some car commercial used the song a coupla years back (kinda seems like this is the way a lot of people are introduced to music nowadays). Sure, I’d heard a little of Before the Flood, a live album capturing performances from a 70’s tour with Dylan, but ol’ Bobby sounds absolutely awful on that thing so I wasn’t exactly playing it to death. Anyway, I heard this song in a commercial, and suffice to say I found it a whole lot more interesting than buying anything with a hemi in it. Still, it wasn’t until some time later that I actually got wind of The Last Waltz.

Take a look at the video clip. Just listen to the way the Staple Singers, sing their hearts out on the chorus (one of the best in the history of rock ‘n’ roll) and watch the furrows flash over singer/drummer Levon Helm’s face as he belts the first verse. It’s so real and excruciatingly brilliant that it’s almost painful to watch. Spine tingling, as I mentioned earlier, it’s sensational in the most literal sense of the word. It’s incredible how well the whole ensemble pulls off such a stunning performance, considering that it was their last performance and tensions had been running high for a few years. Everyone’s in top gear here. Richard Manuel throws down a bed of Saloon-hall piano, Rick Danko’s all over the bassline, his high harmonies like the ghost of some long-gone vagabond, while Robbie Robertson’s glassy guitar twangs over the top of it all.

I can’t begin to express how thankful I am that footage of this unbelievable performance exists. You can watch the video on the link above, but I highly recommend Netflixin’ The Last Waltz for the full effect. Another personal favorite is “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” Make sure to watch Levon as he plays the living hell out of those drums, his shoulders twitching in time to each accented beat. You hear him singing about the defeat of Southern pride and the fall of the Confederacy and you’ll swear he was really there, sweating out on his front porch watching the haggard Yankees riding by.

Amen.