The Last Waltz

Customer Rating:
Summary: A Great Farewell For Robbie Robertson & Company
Comment: This reissue of THE LAST WALTZ is absolutely wonderful. The Band had decided to go out in style, and they invited plenty of guests to join them for a gala concert at San Francisco's Winterland Auditorium, plus additional music made in New York, to create a recording and movie that makes you wish that it had never ended. Ronnie Hawkins, Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, the Staple Singers, Van Morrison, Neil Young, Dr. John, and Emmylou Harris are in the Band's ballpark, but making sense of Neil Diamond is nothing short of a small miracle. Moreover the fact that the surviving members oppose countries falsely jailing foreign visitors for trumped-up crimes, as well as advocating high-school community-service requirements, makes this reissue of THE LAST WALTZ an essential purchase for both your ears AND your conscience.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Incredible Fidelity for a Classic Concert
Comment: This review is for the 2003 remastered version. I have owned the original CDs for The Last Waltz for years now. I just upgraded to the remastered version and the fidelity is incredible. It was well worth the money to get this concert on a CD on which the quality of the fidelity is equal to the music The Band and its musical guests performed at this Thanksgiving Day concert. It even makes up for the fact that I gave my tickets to The Last Waltz to a friend so I could keep a Thanksgiving dinner date with my Dad and his girlfriend. Oh well. Live and learn. 8-)

Customer Rating:
Summary: Must have for any CD collection
Comment: An older guy at work (im 24 yrs old) told me about this CD as he used to be a disc jockey in the 70's. It includes Blues, progressive blues/rock and good old fashioned rock and roll. It was produced by Martin Scorsese and once again i am amazed by his artistic genius. He knows how to take something great and make it timeless. I play this on for my 3 month old and she loves it too, all smiles. 5 out of 5 stars

Customer Rating:
Summary: It doesn't get better than this:-)
Comment: Briliant. Classic. If your heart doesn't break and a smile doesn't come to your face listening to Dixie, The Weight, It Makes No Difference, it's your loss.

Customer Rating:
Summary: An Emotional Masterpiece Nicely Restored
Comment: 1. It was de rigeur for the "hip" of the day to dis Neil Diamond. Some have evidently failed to get over it. Neil Diamond may have his egotisms, but his performance here makes it clear why he made ten times the cash The Band ever made. However hyper-dramatic his writing may be, the man had a -remarkable- voicebox. 2. I had no difficulty hearing Rick's EBO whatsoever.

Okay, now that -that's- over, this 25th anniversary re-issue is more than worthy, even if you already have the DVD... and -far- moreso if you're still suffering along with the old VHS. The sound here is pretty crisp and discriminate, and it includes a lot of little auditory "DISCoveries" for those accustomed to the mud on the audiotape versions circulating until the early '90s. It simply was not possible in the analog era to take tape masters and dump them on those simple light-decoded stereo tracks on celluloid. (Lordy, folks, it's technology from before The First World War, ya know.)

Get your hankies out, though. This is not a bunch of angry, millennial era sterility. Rick, Richard and Levon were -emotional- boys, and they deliver the affective stimulations here far better after years of rendering these tunes on stage than they ever did at the house in Woodstock. Add that to what the Neil's, Van, Emmy Lou and The Staples have to say, and you've got one mighty fine hour and a half here. (Joni's "Coyote" is almost worth the price of admission by itself.)