I was five years old when John Lennon was murdered, so I don’t have any first hand knowledge of him as an artist until way after the fact.
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen footage of Lennon performing as a solo artist. I’m sure he played here or there, but can anyone tell me if he ever toured or put on shows on his own? Did any of you have the chance to see him?
Well, him and Yoko did the famous Bed-in a two week long demonstration for Peace. They recorded Give Peace a Chance during that stunt.
Bagism is a form of performance art created by John and Yoko.
Lennon only rarely performed post-Beatles as a ‘solo’ act. He performed at a Montreal “Rock & Roll Revival” festival in the fall of '69 with Yoko and a loose-knit band called “the Plastic Ono Band.” (But it was definitely JOHN LENNON & the Plastic Ono Band.) He also performed a number of benefit concerts at Madison Square Gardens in NYC in '72. He also performed numbers on several TV shows, including “the Dick Cavett Show” where he performed the very controversial song “Women is the Nigger of the World” (that’s the actual title, folks) But he never extensively toured as a solo act. Not like he had to; I mean he was JOHN LENNON! Of course people were gonna buy his records, there was no need for him to go on the road and plug them if he didn’t want to.
Live John Lennon ‘solo’ recordings:
Lennon appeared on live on stage with Frank Zappa and the Mothers in 1971. There are various mixes of the concert. AFAIK, Lennon’s appearance was not publicized before the show – he and Yoko just showed up.
Lennon also spent half his post-Beatles life (5 years) not recording anything, which at the time was a very long period for a major star not to put out an album. He spent his time getting stoned, baking bread and watching television.
One of his best performances was going on WNEW-FM in New York one afternoon and spending 3 hours talking and playing records with DJ Dennis Elsias. It showed off the man’s wit and word play.
Lennon also avoided things like George Harrison’s “Concert for Bangladesh” because he was afraid with George and Ringo there, there would be many calls for Paul to show up and “Beatles reunion”-what John had spent several years trying to get past.
I seem to have read that the Beatles themselves were not considered a “touring” band. Sure they played a lot of live shows, but it wasn’t their focus. They spent a lot of time in the studio, so thankfully we have a large catalog of their works to enjoy.
They were very much a touring band in their early years, because that was the only way they could survive. They would play 12 hour a day, seven days a week, for months while they were in Hamburg, and they did two stints in Hamburg. From 1960 to 1963 they were traveling and performing constantly and in very unpleasant conditions. They recorded their first 2 albums around their touring schedule, and after they became successful in America, they began their World Tours. 30 shows in 29 cities in 32 days was the norm. Basically from the years of '58-66, they were the definition of a touring band.
They stopped in '66 for several reasons and spent the next 3 years exclusively in the studio. Paul, for one, loved doing live shows and by the time the Beatles broke up, he was very eager to start touring again. John did not love live shows, and honestly, I don’t blame him. Their schedule was grueling and I can’t imagine he looked back on those days with a hint of nostalgia. I never read or saw any indication that he was eager to tour again, and so I’m not really surprised that after '66, he never really got back to it.
They were a touring band in the beginning. But toward the end, the tours were very scary – they were nearly attacked by an angry mob in the Philippines and there was a lot of tension when they played the southern US after the “Bigger than God” remark (when a firecracker went off during a show, they honestly feared it was a gunshot). It also didn’t help that fans threw jelly beans at them; George in particular hated that.
But after that final tour, they gave up on being on the road as a combination of hating the experience and also because their music was difficult to take on the road, since in the studio it required overdubs and added musicians.
The other major problem that made it a drag is that they could never hear themselves – they had no foldback speakers. The thing is, no matter how bad the show was, the girls would scream anyway, and it didn’t seem as if they were into the music, just the fact that they were seeing the Beatles. This caused disenchantment within the group because they felt they weren’t being taken seriously.
As bad as they were, though, the Beatles were often much better in concert than the Stones were – listen to “Got Live If You Want It”, and then compare that to “The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl” or any of the bootlegged concerts, eg. Vancouver, Seattle, Liverpool, Tokyo… and you’ll see what I mean.
They pretty much didn’t exist when the Beatles were touring. I ran across a article in Mix magazine thatdescribed the system they used at their last concert at Candlestick Park:
When The Beatles played their last concert, at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park in 1966, the equipment list for the show could have been written on the back of an envelope. The mics were Shure SM56s, the speakers were modified Altec A-7s powered by Altec 1569 80-watt tube amplifiers, and McCune Sound’s Mort Feld mixed the show on one or two Altec 1567 five-input rotary pot tube mixers.
This is much smaller than most bands would use for a modestly sized night club. I mean, not even an Altec A2?
I hope that your opinion is based on having actually been at both Beatle and Stones concerts and not just watching bootleg videos. I saw the Beatles at their '65 Hollywood Bowl show and have seen the Stones several times. The Beatles put on a great show, but I wouldn’t say it was a much better show than any of the Stones concerts I attended.
Lennon actually suffered from stage fright.
His last major appearance on stage was with Elton John on Thanksgiving night in '74 and that was due to losing a bet with Elton.
I’ve always found the differences between Paul and John fascinating.
John pretty much wasted his enormous talent after the Beatles.
Paul went back to his roots. He formed a modest band of semi-pro musicians and called it Wings. The first couple years he had a ball touring England. I saw a documentary on the BBC. They’d pull into a college and ask the student affairs director if they could play. Naturally no one turned him down. 
Critics panned Wings because it wasn’t slick and commercial. But, that was the whole point. Paul wanted to get back to making music for fun and being with his mates. Heck he even put his wife in the band. Eventually Wings did become a huge success.
I kind of felt sorry for the Beatles. No musician wants that kind of insane success. They couldn’t go anywhere without being mobbed and causing a riot. Elvis had the same problem. Sure, musicians want some success. But, they also want a private life too.
And to side-track thread just a bit, why did he appear to be chewing gum inbetween singing?
Thanks
Quas’ (The eternal Beatls’ fan)
It keeps the saliva flowing. Pavorotti chews gum too.
And, as Zappa pointed out in an interview, some douchebag stole the original 2" master videotapes, replacing them with some tape that was most definitively not Zappa and Lennon.
John pretty much wasted his enormous talent after the Beatles.
Really? All the Beatles fans I know, including myself, have most, if not all, of Lennon’s solo stuff both recorded and live and can get into heated conversations about his work. Paul’s stuff, not so much. Harrison’s and Ringo’s? Even less. Lennon’s post-beatles work is still something I study as an amateur musician and as a 60-70s culture armchair anthropologist. Songs like God, Mother, and Working Class Hero are really incredible considering their themes and date of release. After that first album he then released 4 or 5 more in less than 10 years.
I dont begrudge Lennon some time off. I absolutely hate our current “entertain us, Celebrity” culture in which we dont even consider these people to be real people anymore who need things like vacations or who just want to raise a kid or two.
I was referring to John’s lack of touring as a waste of talent. He spent a lot of years in his NY apartment. I’m not familiar with a lot of John’s solo work because it didn’t get much airplay. Imagine got massive airplay because of his murder.
I’m not knocking his music. I grew up in the 70’s and just don’t recall hearing much about him except the bed-ins and other stunts he pulled with Yoko. His studio recordings may have been really good. <shrug>
Not quite a losing bet. Elton and his band appeared on Lennon’s “Whatever Gets You Thru The Night,” and Elton got Lennon to promise to perform on stage with him if it went to Number 1. It did.