Review: Revival 69: The Concert That Rocked the World

A documentary talking about a 1969 Toronto rock concert that featured John Lennon and The Plastic Ono Band (Eric Clapton included), Alice Cooper, The Doors, Little Richard, and Chuck Berry among others.

 

This should’ve been one heck of a rockumentary experience full of great footage and fascinating stories, as the rock ‘n’ roll old guard got to mix with hip young acts like The Doors and The Alice Cooper Band (who are mostly functioning as the backing band for Gene Vincent, best known for his hit ‘Be Bop a Lula’). Director Ron Chapman and writer Phyllis Ellis (who directs her own docos as well) had other ideas apparently, because this 2023 film is almost completely useless. I hate, absolutely hate the quirky animated storytelling device used throughout this. It’s like a mixture of Terry Gilliam and “Daria”, only cheap and boring. It kills what should truly be a historic, legendary story. And where’s the concert footage? For a whopping 35 minutes, all we get are crap animation and phone calls/messages detailing the organisation of the concert. It’s nowhere near as fascinating as the filmmakers seem to think. Yes it’s cool to hear John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s voices, but all this negotiation talk was of zero interest to me. I wanted to see the footage and to know what it was like for everyone involved to have been there. 30 minutes into a less than 90 minute film, I just wanted the music, man.

 

The only truly interesting talking head here is the token Canadian rock representative, Rush frontman Geddy Lee, who being a Canadian stoner at the time was of course an attendee of the concert. It was nice to hear from Robby Krieger of The Doors as well, but the rest? A total snooze. 37 excruciating minutes in and we finally see and hear Bo Diddley playing a crazy-arse guitar. It’s cool stuff, Diddley’s performance is actually better than some of the Woodstock acts to be honest. Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry might seem a touch out of place at a hippie rock concert in 1969 but Lewis sounds great especially considering he’s very clearly on some kind of combination of chemical influences. It’s great stuff, there’s just not nearly enough of it. We see and hear more of Berry, but unfortunately some of his performance of ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Music’ gets drowned out by the talking heads drivel. Berry truly looks to have put on a show-stopper but we don’t get to enjoy it as much as one would’ve liked. I’m fine with a mixture of concert footage and talking heads discussion so long as the balance is right and the information being delivered via those talking heads is interesting. This film fails in both regards, though I did find it amusing that a concert featuring Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and Chuck Berry would be emceed by the notorious Kim Fowler. Hell, Alice Cooper wasn’t sober at this point so he was probably raising hell at the time too. It’s quite the collection of rock ‘n’ roll crazies.

 

After 53 minutes I had figured we’d seen about 5 minutes maximum of concert footage, and that just isn’t good enough by a long shot. Even the normally reliable Cooper has nothing interesting to say here, and the concert footage of the band is variable in interest. Whilst the idea of The Alice Cooper Band backing up Gene Vincent is hilarious in theory, in actuality they sound mediocre and Vincent looks completely out of his gourd (Vincent would die a few years later at just 36). When they get to perform their own stuff without Vincent, the on-stage antics are curious enough to make you wish you were watching the concert itself. The band was its own beast and weird as all hell. For what it’s worth I saw Alice – long into his solo career at this stage – on the ‘Brutal Planet’ tour and loved it, so I’m a fan. This is the concert where the infamous chicken incident happened. I’ve heard the story a billion times, Alice appears to be bored with the story, but it kinda had to be retold here. And then we get Little Richard to blow everyone else off the frigging stage with just pure energy. You can’t go wrong with ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’, whether it’s sung by Little Richard, CCR, or John Goodman in “King Ralph”. Unfortunately, because this is a concert featuring the Plastic Ono Band it means we have to be obliterated with Yoko Ono’s inimitable musical and vocal stylings…even though we’re not allowed to hear much of anyone else because the filmmakers don’t want us to see the concert that the documentary is entirely about. Klaus Voormann of the Plastic Ono Band speaks for us all when describing the sound Yoko makes during a performance of ‘Cold Turkey’, I won’t spoil it for you. To be honest, Yoko and Lennon seem completely zonked on drugs here and it’s not enjoyable. So thankfully our wonderful filmmakers keep up the consistency of showing sweet bugger all of the footage. Even the performance of ‘Give Peace a Chance’ is just OK. I also need to point out that despite his prior comments, ‘ol Klaus is full of praise for Yoko’s performance just a few minutes later. No, you had it right the first time, mate. The love between John and Yoko was beautiful, but her singing and this film suck. The film ends in such a rush that you wonder if they ran out of funds. I don’t even think we heard The Doors perform at all, and if we did it was a miniscule amount.

 

I had a miserable time with this. One of the least enjoyable music documentaries I’ve ever seen, and the good reviews and ratings it has received has me dumbfounded. I got almost nothing out of his one, but I suppose music nerds interested in how a big concert is put together – involving last minute wrangling – might get a lot more out of it than me. However if you’re looking to hear a lot of music from these iconic artists…go to your CD collection or Spotify. You won’t get anything from this.

 

Rating: D