John Lennon brings the Plastic Ono Band to the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival Festival at Varsity Stadium in 1969.
See it and hear it:
John tentatively cuts loose on "Blue Suede Shoes."
Digging into the Beatles back catalog, he follows that up with a shaky "Money":
And then with a creaky "Dizzy Miss Lizzie."
Then finding his voice, John does a rather grabby number from the Beatles White album, "Yer Blues."
John next introduces "Cold Turkey." A quite stirring rendition notwithstanding the distraction created by Yoko's bleating accompaniment.
John closes out his portion of the show (Yoko would go on to do two numbers solo) with "Give Peace a Chance."
Now read about it:
Live Peace in Toronto 1969 is a 1969 live album recorded by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, as the Plastic Ono Band, at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival festival. Lennon after being asked by local promoter John Brower if he and Yoko would accept an invitation to emcee the show on short notice instead decided to make his post Beatle debut at this festival. Featuring Eric Clapton on guitar (fresh from the break-up of Blind Faith), Klaus Voormann on bass and future Yes drummer Alan White (who a few months later would provide the drums on the percussion-driven Plastic Ono Band single, "Instant Karma!") on drums, the line-up is filled out by Lennon on lead vocals and rhythm guitar and Ono on vocals. The album was credited to Plastic Ono Band, a conceptual grouping that included Lennon and Ono and whoever happened to be backing them up at that particular moment. Both Lennon and Ono would use the nomenclature for several of their future solo albums.
The album is technically a soundtrack recording, being part of the audio portion of D.A. Pennebaker's documentary movie Sweet Toronto. Lennon and Ono made a deal with Pennebaker to license their portion of the show for record, in exchange for rights to include their appearance. Unfortunately the deal fell through, with Lennon and Ono changing their minds about the inclusion (Lennon had been ill the day of the concert, and it showed on camera), and the movie was never originally released. (Showtime ultimately presented the performance during the 1980s, and the full movie appeared later on home video and DVD.)
As initially released on LP and later cassette tape, 8-track and on video cassette, side one of Live Peace in Toronto 1969 comprised John's set, which included his two Plastic Ono Band singles for the year, "Give Peace A Chance" and a preview of the yet-to-be released at the time of the show "Cold Turkey;" "Yer Blues" from The Beatles; and some favoured covers of 1950s rock and roll. Side two comprised Yoko's set, including the b-side to "Cold Turkey," "Don't Worry Kyoko," and featuring her trademark caterwauling stage act, which was not quite as well received as Lennon's performance. The album ends with Lennon, Clapton, and Voorman leaning their guitars against the amplifiers to create a sustained roar of solid feedback, while Yoko continues screaming as the rest of the band leaves the stage.
Unlike many Lennon and Beatles albums, the individual guitars are clearly distinguishable in the stereo mix, with Lennon's toward the left channel and Clapton's toward the right. Also, the movie mix of the soundtrack offers stronger vocals by Ono during "Yer Blues", and Clapton during "Give Peace A Chance". By contrast, Lennon's guitar is hardly audible on the movie.
Admitting he could not remember the recorded lyrics ("I've forgotton all those bits in between, but I know the chorus"), Lennon improvised words to "Give Peace A Chance":
- Everybody's talkin' about
- John And Yoko, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann,
- Penny Lane, Roosevelt, Nixon,
- Tommy Jones and Tommy Cooper and Somebody!.
The album was released to quash any bootleg versions that Lennon was sure would leak onto the market. EMI were reluctant at first to issue the album, after two commercial failures in a row (Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions and Wedding Album) from Lennon and Ono. (Their first effort, Two Virgins, was distributed by Track Records, and had also failed commercially.) The album's success came as a pleasant surprise, changing EMI's perceptions.
Yoko Ono supervised a remixing of Live Peace in Toronto 1969 for its 1995 CD reissue. While the earlier fadeout between sides was eliminated for compact disc, the original ending to the album (a cut-off closing announcement) was eliminated. The CD booklet included a reproduction of the calendar, updated to 1995.
Currently the album is available from audiophile label Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (UDCD 763) and from the iTunes Music Store. The booklet for the Mobile Fidelity release, which was issued in 2006, includes an updated calendar for 2006.
The Toronto Rock and Roll Revival was a one day, twelve hour music festival held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on September 13, 1969. It featured a number of popular musical acts from the 1950s and 1960s.[1] The festival is particularly notable as featuring an appearance by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, as the Plastic Ono Band, which resulted in the release of their Live Peace in Toronto 1969 album. The festival was also the subject of the D.A. Pennebaker film, Sweet Toronto.
The Toronto Rock and Roll Revival was held at Varsity Stadium, of the University of Toronto, before an audience of approximately 20,000. The originally listed performers for the festival were Whiskey Howl, Bo Diddley, Chicago, Junior Walker and the All Stars, Tony Joe White, Alice Cooper, Chuck Berry, Cat Mother and the All Night News Boys, Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Vincent, Little Richard, Doug Kershaw and The Doors. Kim Fowley was listed as the Master of Ceremonies.[2] Screaming Lord Sutch was later added to the bill, as were the Toronto area bands Nucleus and Milkwood, the latter of which included Malcolm Tomlinson.[3] The appearance of John Lennon, Yoko Ono and The Plastic Ono Band was not publicly known in advance.
As recounted by co-producer John Brower:[4]
- The festival was produced by John Brower and Kenny Walker, who had also produced a 2 day festival in June of 1969 at the same facility. The Rock and Roll Revival was notable for its almost having been cancelled the week of the show when poor ticket sales prompted the backers George and Thor Eaton of Canadian department store fame to pull out. Upon hearing this news, Kim Fowley, who was in Toronto early that week with Rodney Bingenheimer to promote for the festival, suggested that Brower call Apple Records in London and invite John and Yoko to come over and be the emcees. Fowley correctly surmised that given Lennon's love of the music of Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Gene Vincent he would be prompted to accept the invitation. Lennon however went Brower one better by suggesting that they wouldn't want to come unless they could play. Brower accepted that offer and quickly arranged plane tickets for John and Yoko, Klaus Voormann, Alan White and Eric Clapton along with Beatles road manager Mal Evans and Yoko's assistant Anthony Fawcett.
- Media outlets in Toronto, including CHUM radio, refused to believe Brower and ticket sales remained stillborn until Detroit promoter and radio personality Russ Gibb played nightly the tape recording of Fawcett reciting the names to Brower for the plane tickets. This caused a last minute stampede into Toronto from Detroit and once wire services reported the entourage had boarded their flight in London CHUM radio went on the air with the news and the stadium sold out during the afternoon of the event. Also notable was the escort into Toronto for both The Doors and John and Yoko by The Vagabonds motorcycle club, whose 80 members rode 40 in front and 40 in back for both artists' limousines from the Toronto airport to the university stadium in the city center.
- It was at this festival that audience members first lit matches and lighters to welcome a performer on stage. Fowley came up with this as a means to ease John Lennon's stage fright. Fowley appeared on stage just before introducing the Plastic Ono Band and had everyone get their matches ready whereupon Lennon and company took the stage to a spectacular show of lights. This has since become a tradition in rock and roll, but was first experienced here.
- Brower and Lennon attempted to produce a world peace festival in 1970, but failed to agree on details and were overwhelmed with both political and internecine opposition.
- It was at this festival that the Alice Cooper "chicken incident" took place; a chicken was reportedly thrown on stage and thrown back into the audience by lead singer Alice, a photo of which was sent by wire around the world. Various reports ranged from Alice biting the chicken's head off before returning it to the crowd to Alice's own claim that audience members in the front of the crowd tore the poor bird to pieces in a frenzy of rock and roll pandemonium.
- An unauthorized Doors recording from the Toronto performance features Doors guitarist Robbie Krieger playing the melody and chorus from The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby" in the middle of his guitar solo on "Light My Fire." The Doors closed the festival and Morrison begins their song "The End" by telling the audience he was honored to be on the same stage as the "illustrious musical geniuses" who had preceded the group that day.
- ...he and his extremely tight band proceeded to tear through his classics at breakneck speed. With sweat gushing down his heavily made up face, he jumped on the piano and drove the young crowd crazy, exhorting them to get up and dance to blazing numbers like 'Rip It Up', 'Good Golly Miss Molly', and 'Jenny, Jenny'. By the time he finished racing through the closing notes of his 'Long Tall Sally' finale, he was sopping wet with his shirt torn to shreds by the crowd below. In 30 frenetic minutes Little Richard had just made his comeback."[7]
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