Power to the People: John & Yoko Live in NYC

Given a short cinema release in April 2026, this film remixes and restores John Lennon and Yoko Ono's 1972 One to One concerts at Madison Square Garden, New York, John's only full-length post-Beatles concerts. We look at the context: this is shortly after the release of Sometime in New York City, an album which hadn't gone down well with fans or critics. Does this explain the audience's seeming relief at hearing songs from other albums? We also look at Yoko Ono as an "anti-rock" vocalist, and discuss Imagine: as this was its only concert performance by its author, did the song escape the singalong anthem status it might otherwise have had?

The film has no streaming release date set at the moment, but generally these short cinema runs are a preamble to an imminent streaming release so we'd expect one soon. https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/power-to-the-people-john-and-yoko-live-in-nyc
Watch the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7DztEZ86IY
Bruce Channel's Hey Baby, part of the brief 1962 harmonica craze into which Love Me Do slotted: https://youtu.be/Ync7jflOzuA
Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak, which started the popularity for autotune: https://open.spotify.com/album/5ykOQlHaE5ZRxMibfI75YW?si=csCzZXmhSqe0uUhNISzyXw
The Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense: https://a24films.com/films/stop-making-sense

Meet the Beatles Films Podcast

The Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.

But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:

Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/beatlesfilmspod.bsky.social
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast
Threads https://www.threads.net/@beatlesfilmspod
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(110)

A Hard Day's Night (Part 5: And a room)

(Ringo's Theme.) We get on to Ringo Starr's real introduction to the world as an actor, when everyone thought "Hey, he's not bad at this, is he?" In particular he does a great job with Wilfred Brambel...

17 Aug 53min

A Hard Day's Night (Part 4: And a room)

Part 4 takes in three of the film's key solo spots: John Lennon's scene with Anna Quayle, George Harrison in the teen TV show office, and Paul McCartney fronting the Beatles' performance of And I Love...

10 Aug 1h 15min

A Hard Day's Night (Part 3: And a car)

From the hotel to the TV studio. We see the Beatles at a press event, which revisits one of the film's themes: that Beatlemania persists with or without the Beatles themselves. We get into more class ...

3 Aug 49min

A Hard Day's Night (Part 2: And a room)

Part 2 covers roughly the next 12 minutes of Richard Lester's film. We look at the absurdist downplayed reaction to finding an intruder in your hotel room cupboard, and the generational disconnect in ...

27 Jul 42min

A Hard Day's Night (Part 1: A train)

Come 'ead, then. We start by looking at roughly the first 16 minutes of the Beatles' 1964 film debut. Expect a detailed breakdown of their first dialogue scene in the train carriage ("Who's that littl...

20 Jul 1h 11min

Snodgrass (with David Quantick)

Ian Hart's third outing as John Lennon was 2013's Snodgrass, adapted by David Quantick from Ian R MacLeod's short story. Aired as part of the Sky Arts Playhouse series, it deals with a Lennon who left...

6 Jul 1h 27min

Raga

In Apple Films' 1971 documentary, Ravi Shankar is pondering whether he's diluted his beloved Indian classical music by promoting it to the West, through his association with George Harrison and The Be...

29 Jun 52min

200 Motels

We're in agreement: this is the worst film we've covered. Yes, worse than Sextette. Ringo Starr's role in Frank Zappa's 1971 freakout film seems like it could've gone to anyone: is there a specific re...

22 Jun 57min