The Band Streams Live Videos For 50th Anniversary

In 1972, The Band released the album, Rock of Ages: The Band in Concert. It is a compilation of the recordings made during their series of shows at the Academy of Music. This year marks its 50th anniversary.

In line with this, the band started streaming a series of live videos featured on the album. The four-night series of shows at the Academy of Music took place in New York City during the final days of 1971.

Videos have been newly-upscaled and are now available for the first time. Some of it includes “Don’t Do It,” a cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Baby Don’t You Do It,” and their own classics, “King Harvest (Has Surely Come)” and “The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show.”

Those videos were from the December 30 show and was filmed by Howard Alk and Murray Lerner. Writing in that album’s liner notes, Robbie Robertson provided some insight into the footage:

“Filmmakers Howard Alk and Murray Lerner shot a few songs of the concert on the 30th. It was just an experiment, because to do a full shoot at the Academy you had to set it up with the Unions. I think some Union guys even showed up and threatened to destroy our equipment and break cameras if it wasn’t organized through them.”

In addition to the video footage, a series of never-before-seen photos taken by celebrated and influential photographer, Ernst Haas during the run have been made available to view for the first time.

The photos vividly capture the group of Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, and Robbie Robertson in their prime on New Year’s Eve in 1971. The group was joined by special guest Bob Dylan. You can check out the videos below.