A concert movie, or concert film, is a type of documentary film, the subject of which is an extended live performance or concert by a musician (or, more recently, by a comedian).
Early concert films include:
- T.A.M.I. Show (1965), including performances by numerous popular rock and roll and R&B musicians at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on October 28 and 29, 1964.
- Monterey Pop (1968), documenting the Monterey Pop Festival of 1967.
- Gimme Shelter (1970), chronicling the Rolling Stones' 1969 US tour, which culminated in the disastrous Altamont Free Concert.
- Woodstock (1970), focusing on the Woodstock Festival in 1969.
- Sweet Toronto (1971), documenting the rock and roll revival concert in Toronto in September 1969, featuring performances by Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band.
- Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii (1972)
- The Concert for Bangladesh (1972), showing the August 1, 1971 Madison Square Garden concert organized by George Harrison for the benefit of Bangladeshi refugees.
- Save the Children (1973),
- Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1973), focusing on David Bowie's July 3, 1973 concert.
- The London Rock and Roll Show (1973) chronicling a Rock and Roll Revival concert held at Wembley Stadium in London, England in August 1972.
- Live at the Roxy, 1973 (1973), Frank Zappa's infamously delayed film documenting the performances that later made up his live album Roxy and Elsewhere.
- The Song Remains the Same (1976), showing scenes from three Led Zeppelin concerts filmed at Madison Square Garden in 1973.
- The Last Waltz (1978), documenting The Band's final concert at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, on Thanksgiving, November 25, 1976.
- Stop Making Sense (1984), taking footage from three shows performed by Talking Heads in Hollywood, California in December 1983.
Famous quotes containing the words concert and/or film:
“Science is unflinchingly deterministic, and it has begun to force its determinism into morals. On some shining tomorrow a psychoanalyst may be put into the box to prove that perjury is simply a compulsion neurosis, like beating time with the foot at a concert or counting the lampposts along the highway.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“Is America a land of God where saints abide for ever? Where golden fields spread fair and broad, where flows the crystal river? Certainly not flush with saints, and a good thing, too, for the saints sent buzzing into man’s ken now are but poor- mouthed ecclesiastical film stars and cliché-shouting publicity agents.
Their little knowledge bringing them nearer to their ignorance,
Ignorance bringing them nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.”
—Sean O’Casey (1884–1964)