Robbie Robertson on the impromptu end of ‘The Last Waltz’
The Last Waltz is perhaps the finest farewell any band has ever crafted for themselves. After nearly two decades of work, The Band were exhausted. Starting out as a backing group for everyone from Ronnie Hawkins to Bob Dylan, The Band eventually struck out on their own, releasing eight albums by 1977 while appearing at legendary festivals like Woodstock. They had done it all, and Robbie Robertson decided that the group should be a studio-only outfit, with the road now becoming a chore.
With that, The Band began to organise one of the most astounding final concerts ever conceived. With the help of concert promotor Bill Graham, The Band brought together an all-star lineup that included Dylan, Hawkins, Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Van Morrison, and scores of other famous faces. With five hours of music pushed through on Thanksgiving Day, 1976, The Band and their cohorts ended the concert with a monster jam that pushed the show into the early hours of the morning. But the audience wouldn’t leave without one final curtain call.
Robertson recalled the scene in his autobiography, Testimony. “Just as we started to lean back and take a deep breath, Bill Graham came banging and barging into the dressing room. ‘No one has left,’ he said. ‘The audience is out there stomping and cheering. You have to go back out there.’ ‘Go back out there?’ I said. ‘Are you kidding? This show has been going on for five hours, and before that they had a feast and waltzed. Come on – enough!’”
“‘They know this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and they’re begging for one more,’ Bill pleaded. ‘Do it for me. If this is the Band’s final concert, for god’s sake, give us one more.’ His voice cracked as he repeated, ‘The final concert of the Band. Man, that’s heartbreaking.’ Hearing that ‘Final Concert’ line got to me. I felt his sadness a hundred times over, but knew I wanted to ride this train into the station with purpose and pride. ‘Shall we?’ I asked the guys. ‘Maybe we should do ‘Don’t Do It’, and then maybe we won’t ‘do it’ anymore.”
The rest of the Band agreed, and Martin Scorsese alerted his film crew that there was one more number to be filmed. “When we came out again, the roar was deafening. I couldn’t believe the crowd still had this much energy. John Simon hustled the horn players back into position, and they pulled out the only chart we hadn’t used tonight.” With that, The Band barrelled into one final version of Marvin Gaye’s ‘Don’t Do It’, closing the book on the classic lineup of The Band for good.
Check out the performance of ‘Don’t Do It’ down below.
