Concert for Bangladesh Revisited with George Harrison and Friends (2005) Online

The Concert for Bangladesh Revisited with George Harrison and Friends (2005)

*** (out of 4)

George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Leon Russell, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Bob Geldof are just some of the people who are interviewed in this look back on the Concert for Bangladesh. Harrison, who only does an audio interview, talks about how the concert came to be, how he got it organized and the various issues that came up trying to pull it off. Some of the best moments deal with the question marks of the show including whether or not Clapton was going to get on a plane and show up or if Bob Dylan was actually going to perform after getting nervous when seeing all the cameras. Overall this is a pretty good featurette but I think there were a few problems. The biggest is that there are way too many music clips in the documentary. Yes, the music from the concert is great but if you want to hear them there is the actual film. I think it was a lot more entertaining hearing from the actual artists about the events that were going on for the show. Ringo briefly talks about the differences between the two shows but it's just a few lines. I really would have liked to have heard more about what the artists were doing in between the two shows and what changes were made. Clapton talks about his personal demons that were haunting him at the time and he mentions a mistake or two that he made. All of the people interviewed tell some very good stories so fans of the benefit, the album or the film are going to be entertained. We also get a lot of press footage of the event as well as some rehearsal footage.

The Concert for Bangladesh Revisited with George Harrison and Friends is a documentary film that was directed by Saul Swimmer and combined footage from both shows with George Harrison's preference of the performances of the songs.

Performers interviewed for the documentary include Ravi Shankar, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Jim Keltner, Jim Horn, Leon Russell and Klaus Voormann, who offer their recollections of the concert.George Harrison talks about organizing the concert in voice-overs only.

Other interviews are with Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner and Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof, both of whom talk of the historic importance of the event, as well as Apple Corps executive Neil Aspinall. Charles Lyons, then president of the US Fund for UNICEF, discusses the immediate benefits of the concerts in providing funds to treat cholera among the refugees, as well as the longer-term influence of the Bangladesh relief project as it will always be acknowledged as the inspiration and the forerunner to the major global fund raising events of for many years to come.