Movie: RockShow: From The Wings Over America Tour

First I need to place this movie in a context. I have been a Wings fan since I was 10 years old.  I was a fan before I knew who Paul McCartney was, or who the Beatles were. I was introduced to Wings by a family friend, and became a devotee almost instantly. It is very inventive music. Very quirky in some places, but never boring.

So yesterday I get an email. It's an invitation to see a once off screening of the film Rockshow. Now, to me, this is the holy grail, or at least one of my holy grails (the others being a Kiss show from the 70's when they were at their peak, the Frampton Comes Alive show, and the Barry Manilow show that spawned his number one live album album from the mid 70's. Alas, I only have the Kiss shows so far, and I doubt the Manilow shows were filmed...)

I am a huge concert fan, and by extension, a huge fan of concert films. I love going to shows, and once I even got to play a pub gig filling in for the guitar player in a friend's band. I will happily sit and watch for hours, a busker playing in the street. That's how mad I am about live music.

I've always known that Rockshow existed, but the closest I ever got to owning it was on the McCartney Years DVD set which included just a handful of songs. Now it's going to be released in June on both Blu-Ray and DVD. I think it may be time to invest in a Blu-Ray player...

Now, to the movie itself. What a thrill (The mid seventies incarnation of Wings was truly a superb live rock band. It's a real tragedy that Jimmy McCulloch is no longer with us). The sound was great, loud like a real concert, and for a film from the 70's, it looked pretty good to me on a big screen. They did a good job on the picture, just like another favourite concert film I have, Springsteen's famous 75 Hammersmith Odeon show in London. It was interesting to see that most of the audience (which was small, no doubt due to the fact that only 24 hours notice was given about the screening, and that by email), was of the older generation shall we say. I was probably one of the youngest in the audience. One older lady had a walking frame! I thought it was a jolly good effort on her part to sit through the entire 2 and a half hour show, despite the really loud volume.

The song list of the film now matches exactly the song list of the subsequent live album, Wings Over America. Of course they are mostly different songs on the live album, and the album sounds a lot cleaner than the movie. That may be because the live album supposedly had some overdubs recorded, to fix up a few problems. Some people may think that's cheating, but I personally don't mind that. If you have a recording that could be around forever, one that will be played over and over, then you may as well make it a good one (Mike Oldfield redid bits of Tubular Bells, and I thank him for it. I always found the mistakes on the original to be extremely annoying. Now the problems are gone, and Tubular Bells is now truly brilliant...)

I have owned the Wings Over America album on vinyl since I was about 12 years old (I badgered my poor mother into buying it for me, something  I still feel guilt over to this day....). A few years ago I copied it to CD myself. I see that along with the release of Rockshow, the live album will also be re-released, but this time with some nice extras. I may need to invest in a new copy.

The track list covers all the great milestone songs of Wings, and McCartney even felt confident enough to attempt some songs he made with this other band he used to be a member of. Now, what were they called again?...

The original live album came on 3 vinyl 12 inch discs:

Side 1: Venus and Mars/Rock Show/Jet/Let Me Roll It/Spirits of Ancient Egypt/Medicine Jar
Side 2: Maybe I'm Amazed/Call Me Back Again/Lady Madonna/The Long and Winding Road/Live and Let Die
Side 3: Picasso's Last Words/Richard Cory/Bluebird/I've Just Seen a Face/Blackbird/Yesterday
Side 4: You Gave Me The Answer/Magneto and Titanium Man/Go Now/My Love/Listen To What The Man Said
Side 5: Let Em In/Time To Hide/Silly Love Songs/Beware My Love
Side 6: Letting Go/Band On The Run/Hi, Hi, Hi/Soily

The cover looked like this:

As a 12 year old I always thought it was a pretty ugly cover. Still do really. Let's face it, it's just not pretty to look at.

Inside, however, is a different story. This has got to be one of he best ever pictures of any rock band I've seen. I wish I could get a copy to frame and hang on my wall. Unfortunately, the following picture doesn't do it justice:

I still can't tell if it's a treated photo, or an actual painting.

You also got a cool double sided poster, which I actually had on my wall for a period of time:

You flipped the poster over and you had this:

For a 12 year old in the seventies this was just the greatest thing.

The live album itself was a massive hit, despite being three records long and much more expensive than a single album. In the US it got to number one and sold about 4 million copies. I think there was only one seven inch single released, which was Maybe I'm Amazed. The B side was Soily. I bought the single as well:

So, there it is. One more thing to cross off the list. I've seen Rockshow on a big screen, something that may never happen again (unless they make it 3D...). Can't wait for the Blu-Ray, and the new CD's.