Who did John Lennon perform with at The Rock and Roll Circus?
By the end of the 1960s, The Beatles were well on their way to becoming solo artists in their own right. The entire journey to make The White Album already felt like four different solo artists guesting on each other’s tunes, and given the massive arguments discussing what to include on the album, it’s safe to say that none of them were having the best time bouncing off one another. It was time for all of them to blow off some steam, which meant John Lennon took his rock and roll flavour to the circus.
Then again, it wasn’t uncommon for some of the Fab Four to fly solo for other projects. George Harrison had been working on the soundtrack to the film Wonderwall using Eastern instruments, and Paul McCartney had also helped George Martin write snippets for the movie The Family Way. But when The Rolling Stones’ Rock and Roll Circus came out, Lennon was ready to jam from the moment he got started.
Granted, the entire set was already a hodgepodge of the biggest names in rock. Aside from The Stones delivering a knockout performance, The Who tore through one of the best versions of ‘A Quick One While He’s Away’, while Jethro Tull got introduced to the big leagues featuring a then-unknown guitarist named Tony Iommi before he found out that his time was better served making riffs from hell.
Lennon could command the stage when he wanted to, but the only problem was that he didn’t have a band with him. This was the golden age of the supergroup, with Led Zeppelin and Cream coming to fruition. Once Lennon stepped up onstage with a bunch of friends, The Dirty Mac was born.
So, who played with John Lennon in The Dirty Mac?
While the band itself was never meant to go the distance or anything, every single person onstage with Lennon had become an icon in their own right. With Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience sitting in on drums, Lennon was joined by Eric Clapton on guitar and Keith Richards switching over to bass for an elongated blues jam, starting with a performance of ‘Yer Blues’.
Given that none of them had played together before, though, their take on the Beatles rocker goes over fairly well. Lennon had already been going through some personal pain thanks to the public’s treatment of him and Yoko Ono, so him screaming about the trouble that he was having was practically a preview for the primal therapy screams that he would start using when he started his solo career.
Then again, their performance of the song ‘Whole Lotta Yoko’ is still an acquired taste, featuring Ono coming up onstage and doing her signature screeches into the microphone. The talent onstage would have been well worth the price of admission, but outside of the raucous playing on the track, it’s easy to sense the confusion from the audience, not knowing if they should listen intently or walk out.
Regardless of how it was perceived, The Dirty Mac deserves some credit for getting the wheels turning in Lennon’s head. Since none of them had any commitment to the group other than this one-off gig, this could have easily been considered a prototype for what he wanted the Plastic Ono Band to be later.
