On September 13th, 1969, John Lennon and The Plastic Ono Band (Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, bassist Klaus Voorman and drummer Alan White) performed at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, a one-day festival held in the city’s Varsity Stadium.
There were a last-minute addition to a line-up that included The Doors, Chicago, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Vincent, Bo Diddley and Alice Cooper, and it’s been documented in a new film, Revival 69: The Concert that Rocked the World.
The show was the brainchild of Toronto promoter John Bower who says Lennon was “only added on the bill at the last minute, and there was no real belief by the Toronto media — or any media — that he was actually coming until he was seen boarding a plane for Toronto the day of the show. Despite being the most important event in Canadian music history with international significance, other than some local articles, no one other than hardcore Lennon/Beatles fans and music industry insiders even knew about it.”
With footage captured by the late documentarian D.A. Pennebaker, it features interviews with Brower, Alice Cooper, and Geddy Lee, who was 16 and in the audience. Also interviewed are Klaus Voormann, The Doors’ Robby Krieger and many others, including Lennon’s personal assistant, Anthony Fawcett, who says the performance gave Lennon the confidence to tell The Beatles the week after that he wanted out.
The film opened in theaters in Canada last week and will be available on Video-On-Demand on January 3rd and Crave TV after that.
Eric Clapton recalls John Lennon asking him, on three hours’ notice, to fly from London to join his band for a Toronto concert on September 13th, 1969.
“We got into the first-class compartment of the airplane, got our guitars out and rehearsed the songs that he wanted to do. Can’t imagine that happening now. The bonhomie was very strong, you know, there was great companionship there — except when we got to Toronto airport, a limousine rolled up and John and Yoko got in and off they went and we were just left standing there on the curb, not knowing what to do. I don’t know how we got to the hotel. I didn’t even know what the thing was all about. I didn’t know, for instance, that we’d gone on with Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis either side of us. I didn’t know any of what was going on, really. It was just having a great time.”
REUTERS PHOTO
