The Plastic Ono Band, comprising John, Yoko, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voorman and drummer Alan White were a short-lived ensemble. This festival was their only show with their eponymous album - Lennon's 'primal scream' opus - their only record.
The Sweet Toronto Peace Festival in 1969, curated by Lennon was a chance for him to find relief from the spiralling nastiness of being in The Beatles and promote his new fad: peace
The film is unmistakeably Pennebaker with footage of the hoards of hippies making their way to the event with a Bo Diddley soundtrack accompanying. He would make his name that year with his Woodstock documentary.
Lennon put together a bill of his boyhood heroes, but they are allowed just a song each on this DVD, which lasts a mere 56 minutes. After Bo Diddley comes Jerry Lee Lewis with Hound Dog, before Little Richard struts on stage in his bizarre finery and wiggles around before sitting at the piano. When he sings Lucille, all is forgiven.
Even arch-showman Chuck Berry brings the house down, oblivious to the fact that around that time that Lennon was plagiarising his You Can't Catch Me in composing Come Together.
The Plastic Ono Band join in on the nostalgia with fun, if not particularly interesting, performances of Blue Suede Shoes, Money (That's What I Want) and Dizzy Miss Lizzy. The only Beatles song performed is Yer Blues, the swampy, funny ode to suicide that ended up on Let It Be. Lennon, in the midst of his huge beard phase, is in awesome voice and Clapton excels himself.
But there does seem to be a high-pitched interference that might have been a problem with my copy. Wait, no, that's Yoko caterwauling in the background. Except it's not in the background. I think I speak for every member of the Toronto crowd when I say I wish she wouldn't do that.
Cold Turkey is jauntier than the pained rendering the song received when released as a single, and then Yoko gets her turn to, err, shine. She comes across in interviews as a good and sweet human being and even some of her art demands respect.
Musically, the woman is a disaster who no one in their right mind would let on stage or in a studio. On this sorry occasion, Lennon was blinded to her depravity by love and Clapton by the smorgasbord of drugs he was ingesting in 1969. Don't Worry Kyoko and John John (Let's Hope For Peace) are given over to her howling into the microphone while John plays 'experimental guitar', which seems to involve screechy feedback and little else.
Ultimately, any live footage of Lennon is going to fly off the shelves. But this really should come with a health warning.
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