music

The Concert for Bangladesh is rock reaching for its manhood. Under the leadership of George Harrison, a group of rock musicians recognized, in a deliberate, self-conscious, and professional way, that they have responsibilities and went about dealing with them seriously:

Heard at the end of the album, during the concert's single greatest performance by all concerned, the simplicity of the lyrics takes on a new and powerful force. For by then they are no longer an expression of intent but of an accomplished mission help has been given, people have been reached, an effort has been made and results will be felt.

With such names as Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Leon Russell, and finally, Bob Dylan, involved, the concert would have been an enormous success no matter how it was planned or run. But part of the record's beauty is that Harrison staged a concert worthy of his purpose in every respect. With such an array of talent on hand, he created a program that miraculously avoided comparisons with any previous super-shows by staging it not as a collection of individual performances or fixed sets, but as a revue. His presence throughout undermined from the beginning the superstar quality of the evening and put the emphasis on the concert as a fraternal gathering of musicians devoted to a single charitable purpose. Seen in that light, his introduction of Ravi Shankar at the beginning of the concert is particularly moving, as is the inclusion of a full side of Ravi's music.

George's personal intentions resonate when he begins his own performance with "Wah-Wah," a simple statement by a musician who knows who he is and what he wants to play. "My Sweet Lord" and "Awaiting on You All" have a rough quality to them characteristic of most of George's performances on the albums. His efforts, with the exception of "Here Comes the Sun," are production numbers that required the participation of all the musicians. It is no wonder that on one number the chorus is noticeably off-key, or that on another the guitars occasionally clash with each other. More important than any technical imperfections that remain in the performance was George's decision not to tamper with the original tapes. By the end of the performances on side two we feel fully in the middle of a true musical experience. George's songs had already been heard once in perfect productions either on Beatle albums or on All Things Must Pass. I don't mind it all being a little rough around the edges when the quality of the music runs this deep. On "Awaiting On You All" it is exhilarating to hear his voice clearly singing the song for the first time, likewise the excellent guitar. And it is great to have a version of "My Sweet Lord" in which the emphasis is on the voice, words, and guitar, instead of on the sound as a whole.

Acutely aware of the need for pacing, if he was to remain on stage for the entire rock program, George introduces two individual performers. Billy Preston's turn on "That's The Way God Planned It" is sheer delight. The song is beautiful and while some of its musical force is lost at the end, when Preston was too busy playing with the song visually to sustain his vocal, it nonetheless remains one of the true highpoints of the album. Ringo's "It Don't Come Easy," on the other hand, is great just because it is Ringo being totally real. It is thoroughly to his credit that he did not overdub a new vocal on this track. He sings the song off-key, awkwardly, but with tremendous good-nature and humor and his performance contributes immeasurably to creating the mood of the evening. It is, like almost everything on the album, honest.

"Beware of Darkness" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" features George with two other talents, Leon Russell and Eric Clapton respectively. The vocal duet on the former comes as a terrific surprise, one of the concert's best-balanced moments musically, a performance of almost stately proportions. Eric Clapton receives the largest applause the line-up and he then duets on guitar with George on a driving version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." The song remains possible the best that George has written. Eric's performance on guitar only reminds us how inactive he has been lately and how much so many of his admirers would like to see him contributing again. His last album, Layla, was surely his best and one can only hope that he will pick up where he left off soon.

To me, Leon Russell's performance represents the one incongruous note in the program. Part of the brilliance of the concert is, first, hearing so many people who we are not used to hearing live at all, and, secondly, hearing musicians we have always admired playing with each other on stage for the first time. With the exception of Russell, nobody did a piece from their live sets in most instances because the artist doesn't do regular live performances. It was all something fresh, original, and unexpected. While Leon's music here is as dazzling as ever, during his set the concert suddenly became a Leon Russell show and I have heard that before. Good as his actual performance is, his conception of the role was too commonplace for an event as special as this.

George's capacity for pacing and timing is nowhere better illustrated than in his next move. Following the high's of Russell's rock performance, he had the stage completely cleared so that when he introduced the next guest there would be no need for further delay. He then went into an acoustic performance of an enormous Beatle hit, thereby accomplishing two things: he brought the level of the music down from full-scale rock to a quiet, acoustic sound and he did it without losing his audience for a second due to his brilliant choice of song, "Here Comes the Sun," to which he gives a superb performance, with the assistance of that excellent Apple band, Badfinger.

All of which led perfectly into Bob Dylan's performance. The 17 minutes of music he offers us here is certainly the best he has released in recent years. While conceived of as a special sort of greatest hits performance, the selection of tunes was merely a vehicle for Dylan to exhibit another new vocal style a style so rich and perfectly suited to him I can't help wondering why he immediately changed it again when he recorded the new material for Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, Vol. 2. The performances are all great but "Just Like a Woman" sung with a sort of fierce, personal, but musical, determination is surely the best of it, one of the two or three great moments on the set as a whole.

And of course, how does one come back out after a set by Dylan that literally takes the roof off of the Garden, but with another enormous Beatle hit: And so George offers up a superb version of "Something" and then he is gone and back with what is again, for me, the album's most meaningful moment, the group performance of "Bangladesh."

Besides everything else, Bangladesh was a great show, brilliantly put together by an artist who not only knew how to assemble a lot of great musicians but had an instinctive feeling for how best to present them and their music with honesty, dignity, and maturity. The total effect was that the event did justice to everyone connected with it. The idea of an enjoyable rock show as a vehicle for aiding starving refugees never becomes incongruous precisely because both musicians and audience conduct themselves with such self-respect.

In particular, George Harrison emerges, from the introductory remarks to Ravi Shankar's set to the closing of "Bangladesh," as a man with a sense of his own worth, his own role in the place of things, and as a man prepared to face reality openly and with a judgement and maturity with few parallels among his peers. As much as the music contained within the package, the spirit he creates through his own demeanor is inspirational. From the personal point of view, Concert for Bangladesh was George's moment. He put it together; and he pulled it off, and for that he deserves the admiration of all of us.

To celebrate the pending tenth anniversary of AVRev.com, AVRev.com has compiled its list of the top bands in rock history.

The Judges
The group of five judges included three Baby Boomers and two Generation Exers. The Boomers include former Dire Straits guitarist Jack Sonni, as well as University of Southern California Thornton School of Music professor Ken Lopez and AVRev.com’s music editor Charles Andrews. Desktop speaker company XHi-Fi president Howard Schilling and AVRev.com founder and publisher Jerry Del Colliano, Jr. round out the group.

The Method and Categories
From a diverse list of 100 bands, judges ranked each band for each category. A perfect score is 550 points. Using the analytical tools that have become popular in high-powered fantasy sports, the AVRev.com judges rated bands based on a battery of criteria.

U.S. Sales: (100 points max) Sales numbers come from the RIAA’s website and are ranked from 100 to 1 (with the top score going to The Beatles). These numbers are based in fact and therefore were not voted on or changed in any way by any of the judges.

Songs and Songwriting: (100 points max) Songwriting is key to the legacy of any band. In addition to songwriting, judges were encouraged to judge a band on how they interpreted songs in performance. The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s version of “All Along the Watchtower” or Van Halen’s “You Really Got Me” reflect the respective band’s ability to remake a great song, written by someone else, as their own.

Technical Ability: (100 points max) All too often, music critics overlook a band’s ability to play their asses off (think reviews of Nirvana), but not at AVRev.com. Having chops is a fully ranked, 100-point category.

Innovation: (100 points max) The ability to define a genre or a sound or a technique, or to strongly influence bands that came after you, make up the parameters for the fully-weighted innovation category.

Live Performance: (50 points max) Some members of the panel of judges have actually played with or opened for a number of the bands on the list. Ken Lopez’s story of jamming with Jimi Hendrix at the Guild booth before the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival is an all-time classic rock story. Our team of judges look at how good a band is playing live based loosely on their draw, seeing the band live or watching them on video.

Consistency vs. Longevity: (50 points max) This is one of the most interesting categories, when you consider the role of the most critically acclaimed bands during the history of rock. Bands like The Eagles rank high in this category because they had a long run as a top rock band, yet knew when to hang up the spurs. The Jimi Hendrix Experience, despite their short run, also did well, considering their three studio records. Even when Jimi let Noel Redding (the bass player) sing – the song was good. The Rolling Stones have many a landmark record in their history, but they also have many a stiff. Consider your own grade for bands like Genesis and Van Halen, who tried to go for a third front man with disastrous results to an otherwise spectacular career.

Random Play (50 points max): This category allows the judge to vote on a band based on how likely he is to listen to a band’s songs if they were to come up on an iPod. Many respected bands suffer in this category, whereas bands that are quietly a guilty pleasure (think The Bee Gees or The Carpenters) can get high grades.

Bands That Never Got Considered
It was a tough job to assemble the list of bands for consideration. It was essential that bands from the early days of the 1950s through today’s most popular acts were considered. We looked for diversity in genre and type. We included bands that were reggae, electronic, strong country/crossover and beyond. We did not consider individual artists such as Elvis or Michael Jackson, because this is an exercise in looking at the best bands. In the event an artist was associated with a stable band, judges were instructed to only consider his or her work with that band. An act like Prince and the Revolution was aided in that category, since “the artist formerly known as a vegan symbol record company slave” isn’t being judged.

In the process of ranking bands, we have thought of a few we would have liked to add and we are confident you will have some good suggestions, too, which we will list. Click here to voice your opinion about this article. Here is a start to the list:

ABBA, Chicago, Kiss and more to come....

	Band	1 to 100				1 to 50			1 to 550
		U.S. Sales	Songs	Technical Ability	Innovation	Live Performance	Consistency	Random Play	Total
1.	Led Zeppelin	99	95	98	93	48	48	47	528
2.	The Beatles	100	98	78	99	45	47	47	514
3.	Pink Floyd	97	91	92	96	48	43	39	506
4.	The Jimi Hendrix Experience	68	95	99	99	49	46	47	503
5.	Van Halen	91	87	97	93	44	42	42	496
6.	Queen	84	91	91	91	45	46	45	493
7.	The Eagles	98	95	84	68	42	47	45	479
8.	Metallica	92	84	87	87	46	39	33	468
9.	U2	90	84	73	78	48	46	36	455
10.	Bob Marley and the Wailers	59	92	72	93	44	47	47	454
11.	The Police	71	91	91	72	38	44	44	451
12.	The Doors	82	87	75	88	39	43	36	450
13.	Stone Temple Pilots	61	86	85	87	43	40	44	446
14.	Rush	75	74	98	77	43	42	35	444
15.	Genesis	67	84	83	81	41	42	38	436
16.	Prince and the Revolution	58	87	84	79	45	40	42	435
17.	Yes	52	75	94	89	46	38	40	434
18.	Earth Wind and Fire	73	88	91	68	39	39	35	433
19.	The Bee Gees	78	88	76	73	35	39	39	428
20.	The Rolling Stones	94	89	66	68	41	32	28	418
21.	The Beach Boys	66	81	73	89	34	33	38	414
22.	Soundgarden	43	78	83	86	40	41	42	413
23.	The Who	65	75	84	73	44	37	34	412
24.	Steely Dan	49	84	85	87	29	37	40	411
25.	James Brown and the JBs	9	89	89	93	44	42	42	408
26.	AC/DC	96	73	68	50	40	37	36	400
27.	Fleetwood Mac	89	79	75	54	37	36	28	398
28.	Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young	62	79	81	63	39	38	34	396
29.	The Allman Brothers	39	75	86	77	41	39	37	394
30.	ZZ Top	76	71	75	48	42	41	39	392
31.	Aerosmith	95	78	72	47	37	35	27	391
32.	Cream	28	77	87	84	47	32	35	390
33.	Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band	93	68	62	50	48	37	28	386
34.	The Grateful Dead	60	62	69	85	46	33	30	385
35.	Guns 'N Roses	87	73	76	51	34	29	31	381
36.	Pearl Jam	81	54	55	89	42	31	26	378
37.	Boston	83	67	74	57	37	30	29	377
38.	Dire Straits	57	73	78	53	36	35	31	363
39.	King Crimson	7	60	96	84	44	35	36	362
40.	Parliament Funkadelic	27	72	78	82	37	35	30	361
41.	Red Hot Chili Peppers	63	68	68	59	41	29	28	356
42.	Bon Jovi	85	74	73	31	39	29	24	355
43.	Dixie Chicks	80	53	59	85	26	33	17	353
44.	Foreigner	86	70	66	45	33	29	23	352
45.	David Bowie and The Spiders From Mars	30	71	73	75	38	33	31	351
46.	The Talking Heads	37	71	69	66	38	34	33	348
47.	Jethro Tull	50	61	71	75	36	26	28	347
48.	The Band	21	71	77	64	39	38	34	344
49.	The Beastie Boys	69	53	40	88	36	30	27	343
50.	Nirvana	77	53	45	88	37	25	17	342
51.	Rage Against The Machine	45	60	82	67	26	34	26	340
52.	Sly and the Family Stone	42	74	67	85	20	23	27	338
53.	The Clash	31	58	61	89	35	30	33	337
54.	Tool	44	49	85	60	36	33	28	335
55.	Journey	88	59	76	33	29	26	23	334
56.	No Doubt	53	82	60	43	30	37	27	332
57.	Creedence Clearwater Revival	70	66	57	40	31	32	32	328
58.	Deep Purple	38	65	77	53	36	31	25	325
59.	Alice In Chains	48	53	66	74	25	26	31	323
60.	Orbital	8	53	64	88	36	41	32	322
61.	Little Feat	22	66	77	56	40	31	29	321
62.	Duran Duran	51	74	57	61	23	29	25	320
63.	Living Colour	24	44	85	75	38	22	31	319
64.	Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention	5	61	85	81	29	31	26	318
65.	The Carpenters	74	61	52	54	19	28	29	317
66.	Audioslave	29	71	77	52	30	26	31	316
67.	The Pretenders	26	62	61	72	39	31	24	315
68.	Primus	23	45	88	66	38	27	27	314
69.	Blondie	34	65	57	65	32	31	29	313
70.	Black Sabbath	54	55	60	62	33	26	19	309
71.	Lynyrd Skynyrd	79	52	51	45	34	29	17	307
72.	Sex Pistols	16	65	41	95	37	28	24	306
73.	Isaac Hayes and the Movement	15	70	70	51	39	33	27	305
74.	R.E.M.	64	54	47	55	29	35	20	304
75.	Traffic	20	61	76	59	33	30	24	303
76.	Buffalo Springfield	17	66	65	59	35	32	28	302
77.	Derek and the Dominos	11	74	77	49	31	28	31	301
78.	The Jackson Five	18	86	51	52	27	35	30	299
79.	The O'Jays	33	66	62	43	31	32	31	298
80.	Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes	25	68	62	41	32	30	29	287
81.	Underworld	2	68	61	48	40	36	31	286
82.	Thievery Corporation	1	69	53	56	31	39	36	285
83.	Motley Crue	72	55	56	29	23	24	25	284
84.	Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company	56	51	46	52	29	24	25	283
85.	Blind Faith	19	59	66	55	26	24	28	277
86.	The Animals	10	64	53	52	34	34	29	276
87.	The Roots	12	41	79	76	24	28	11	271
88.	The Velvet Underground	4	50	64	69	27	30	21	265
89.	The Kinks	13	53	52	60	30	31	23	262
90.	Radiohead	32	54	50	47	31	27	20	261
91.	The Scorpions	47	46	56	35	27	24	25	260
92.	Kansas	55	43	53	44	28	20	15	258
93.	Iron Maiden	36	38	62	52	29	22	18	257
94.	Motorhead	6	43	52	64	36	23	29	253
95.	Judas Priest	40	31	65	46	26	22	21	251
96.	The Orb	3	49	54	62	22	26	23	239
97.	The Cure	41	42	28	58	20	31	10	230
98.	Coldplay	46	43	41	37	27	19	16	229
99.	Slayer	14	31	72	45	27	18	18	225
100.	Black Eyed Peas	35	33	36	40	34	20	16	214