Back tracks 7

Is The Last Waltz over yet? How is it, that 25 years after an over-long, self-congratulatory, look-at-all-the-cool-people-we-know "farewell" concert, The Band's last show still matters? It doesn't. it didn't matter at the time (although no one wants to admit it), and it matters less now. Though you would never know it judging by the fawning reviews of last year's 4 disc version of the longest group hug ever.

The Band should be remembered as the greatest rock 'n' roll backing band of all time. They could play any style, from any time in American popular music. Their recordings with Bob Dylan (best documented on the bootleg series The Genuine Basement Tapes) are rightfully legendary, and as the backing band for Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Van Morrison on The Last Waltz they proved it again. But on their own, they too often sound like a competent cover band; the songs sound like you've heard them before, and in more dynamic arrangements. It's as if they never synthesized their individual influences to find their own collective voice. Backing an artist with a distinct idiomatic voice (as is the case with the three artists above), The Band shines. The leadership of these artists focuses the skills of The Band and creates something transcendent. The version of Helpless that Neil Young and The Band performed that November day in '76 is the best one I've ever heard.

But The Band themselves? Twaddle, pure and simple. As the coked-out superstars of the early seventies said goodbye to their relevance at The Last Waltz, Punk was rising in England, riding the snot and spittle anger of the next generation in 3-minute staccato bursts. The Weight with it's pseudo-religious tones and painfully deep lyrics like:

Crazy Chester followed me and he caught me in the fog
He said "I will fix your rat if you'll take Jack my dog''
I said "Wait a minute Chester, you know I'm a peaceful man''
He said "That's okay boy, won't you feed him when you can?''

gives way to the Sex Pistols Pretty Vacant:

Don't ask us to attend
'cause we're not all there
Oh don't pretend 'cause I don't care
I don't believe illusions 'cause too much is real
So stop your cheap comment

'cause we know what we feel

Overblown metaphor would never be the same. Thank God.