A historic live performance that, surprisingly, typically goes underneath the radar within the historical past of some British rock royalty happened at London’s Lyceum Theatre on December 15, 1969.
It was a charity occasion for UNICEF, the United Nations’ worldwide fund, known as Peace and Love for Christmas. The live performance marked the dwell debut of the prolonged Plastic Ono Band, on this event that includes the unimaginable line-up of John Lennon, Yoko Ono, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Delaney & Bonnie, Billy Preston, and varied different Beatles and Clapton alumni, with a short look by Keith Moon. It got here within the week of launch of the Plastic Ono Band’s Stay Peace In Toronto.
Lennon’s final dwell UK look
The live performance turned out to be Lennon’s final dwell look in his residence nation. It’s additionally the reply to what may very well be a memorable trivia query, concerning the night time Lennon and Harrison have been on a invoice that additionally featured Jimmy Cliff, Desmond Dekker, the Younger Rascals, and UK hitmakers Blue Mink. Tickets price £1 every, and others becoming a member of the stellar forged included Klaus Voorman, Bobby Keys, Jim Worth, and Alan White, all common collaborators to this prolonged household. BBC Radio1 DJ Emperor Rosko MCd the night.
This was Lennon and Harrison’s first scheduled dwell efficiency since The Beatles’ well-known last live performance at Candlestick Park in San Francisco on August 29, 1966. It happened throughout a interval when Harrison and Clapton have been touring as a part of Delaney & Bonnie and Associates, as they have been billed. The Lyceum stage was adorned with an enormous “War is over” message banner, previewing the sentiment of John and Yoko’s subsequent Christmas single.
This supergroup carried out Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band’s then-current single “Cold Turkey” and its B-side “Don’t Worry Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking For Her Hand In The Snow),” each in prolonged variations. The recordings, blended by Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick, have been included because the second disc, titled Stay Jam, on the unique launch of the 1972 album credited to Lennon, Ono and Elephant’s Reminiscence, Some Time In New York Metropolis. John introduces “Cold Turkey” (which was within the UK chart on the time of the occasion, having peaked at No.14) by saying “This is a song about pain.”
Lennon is quoted, by The Beatles Bible and elsewhere, expressing his enthusiasm for the night time. “I thought it was fantastic,” he stated. “I used to be actually into it. We have been doing the present and George and Bonnie and Delaney, Billy Preston and all that crowd turned up. They’d simply come again from Sweden and George had been taking part in invisible man in Bonnie and Delaney’s band, which Eric Clapton had been doing, to get the strain off being the well-known Eric and the well-known George.
“They became the guitarists in this and they all turned up, and it was again like the concert in Toronto. I said, ‘Will you come on?’ They said, ‘Well, what are you going to play?’ I said, ‘Listen, we’re going to do probably a blues…or ‘Cold Turkey,’ which is three chords, and Eric knew that. And ‘Don’t Worry Kyoko,’ which was Yoko’s, which has three chords and a riff. I said, ‘Once we get on to Yoko’s riff, just keep hitting it.’”
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