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DVD Review: John Lennon & The Plastic Ono Band “Live In Toronto ’69”

Live In Toronto ’69 (Shout! Factory) isn’t as artistically compelling as the best of cinéma vérité director D.A. Pennebaker’s work, and at barely 50 minutes, it’s painted on a much smaller canvas. But Pennebaker managed to capture the only footage of the Plastic Ono Band (here made up of John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voorman and Alan White) performing live, and his camera is clearly enthralled by watching an uncharacteristically nervous Lennon step into a frontman slot for the first time. The 1969 Toronto Rock ‘N’ Roll Festival also featured Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard, whose performances take up the first 15 minutes of the film. The Ono Band follows with a handful of easy pickup numbers such as “Blue Suede Shoes,” moving to more recent Lennon compositions including “Cold Turkey” and “Give Peace A Chance.” (Of course, it is the Plastic Ono Band, so Yoko’s also crawling into a bag during the oldies set and trilling throughout “Yer Blues,” presumably befuddling Jerry Lee Lewis’ crowd.) “We’ve never played together before,” Lennon says twice, sheepishly, and it shows. Missed lyrics and flubbed chord progressions abound, and yet what we’re watching is Lennon taking his first cautious artistic steps outside the Beatle brand, which frequently makes for forceful viewing. Pennebaker’s tight shots on Clapton and Lennon’s concerned faces as they attempt to cue and follow each other highlight the ragtag nature of the performance, as does Lennon’s cheating from the lyric sheet during “Cold Turkey.” What’s most interesting about the show is its historical significance; Pennebaker documents the earliest of Lennon and Ono’s collaborative performances, and fans of their experimental material should check set-closing feedback/voice duet “John John (Let’s Hope For Peace).” It’s mostly for the already converted, but Live In Toronto ‘69 fills a gap, however minor, in the historical record of rock’s most public couple.

—Eric Waggoner