From Fleetwood Mac to The Summer of Soul: The Best Concert Films Ever Made
With Billie Eilish’s new concert movie out in cinemas, we take a look back at some of the greats. Still time to become a roadie, right...
Hey ho, let’s go. We can pull up live performances like Freddie Mercury at Live Aid quite literally any time we need some pep. But when you need to sink into the music, it’s gotta be a good concert film. We’re talking docs that focus on one specific gig, tour or time period, so not biopics or full-on music documentaries about an entire career, movies in which the concert is a very small percentage of the runtime (Peter Jackon’s Get Back docu-series on The Beatles) or where real-life events take over from the performance itself (the Maysles brothers’ Gimme Shelter on the Rolling Stones). Thus, the criteria for an all-timer concert film is simple: great concert, great film.
And there’s no one way to get it right. Some film-makers keep things slick, pre-planned and focused, others experiment with new forms and out-there camerawork inspired by the playing: case in point, the new concert film of Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard And Soft tour is directed, in 3D, by James freakin’ Cameron. The following rundown spans eight decades and while sure, rock is perhaps over-represented, genres including pop, soul, jazz, hip hop and electronic music. Honourable mentions: Woodstock (1970), Prince’s Sign ‘o’ The Times (1987), Madonna’s Truth or Dare (1991), The Cure Trilogy (2002) and LCD Soundsystem’s Shut Up and Play the Hits (2012). What did we miss? Fight us in the comments.
Stop making sense (1984)
Stop Making Sense was both lightning in a bottle and the very deliberate result of people working together at the height of their genius - David Byrne, Talking Heads and director Jonathan Demme. That’s why it’s probably still the definitive concert film, with The Last Waltz (below) a masterpiece of a different kind in a lot of people’s minds. Here, aside from the closing moments when we’re treated to some funky moves to Crosseyed and Painless from the audience at the Hollywood Pantages Theater, Demme is all about what’s going down on stage. Of course, what’s going down on stage is difficult to put into words.
David Byrne acts like a man possessed for most of the runtime, creating one-of-one images - the slicked back hair, the boombox, the oversized jacket - and infecting his bandmates and backing singers with his oddball sensibilities and high-wire frequency. They’ve all turned it up to eleven. But if you’ve encountered this film in the past or at house parties, you’ll find memories start to warp with every rewatch. Did Byrne really only dance with a lampshade for one section of This Must Be The Place? How did Demme essentially make multiple music videos out of just three live performances? Has any frontman ever jogged, yelped, stared, wiggled, slapstick-stumbled and swung quite like Talking Heads’? Or smacked himself round the head with such panache? It boils down to this: you have to watch Stop Making Sense to get the full Talking Heads experience. Life-giving stuff.
The Last Waltz (1978)
The (other) concert film all others must be compared to - even Eric Clapton was stunned by this line-up. The Last Waltz is directed by Marty Scorsese and it forms the beginning of a long and brilliant cinema-music partnership between the film-maker and musician-producer Robbie Robertson. (Pair this with Rolling Thunder Revue). Here, it’s Thanksgiving 1976 and The Band are putting on one peerless final show at Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco after 16 years on the road. The Band were one of those ‘your favourite musician’s favourite musicians’ kinda outfits, hence the bill: Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Clapton, Neil Young, Muddy Waters! Van Morrison, Neil Diamond, Emmylou Harris, Ronnie Wood, Ringo Starr..
Marty had a 300-page script of all 37 songs, all the collaborators and a 45-person camera crew. This is meticulous concert film-making that never misses any magic: the intro of The Staples Singers alone! Gorgeous harmonies, gorgeous playing, gorgeous camerawork on The Weight. And lots of that old-school thing we like, where two singers sing into the same mic. Sublime. The vignettes are a cut above the usual too, with stories of stealing food, the merging of country music and R’n’B and playing to empty halls.
Another reason to dig into the concert film archives: getting up close with players - like The Band’s lead guitarist Robbie Robertson - who are no longer with us; Robertson died in 2023. In The Last Waltz, Marty and the team often frame him just behind the singer so you could watch the whole concert film as purely Robbie Robertson’s night, as he switches between focused concentration on backing these legends well and smiling, calling out and enjoying himself as he soaks up moment after moment.
Summer of Soul: Or When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised (1969/2021)
Made by our favourite music teach Questlove, aka The Roots’ Ahmir Thompson, and the winner of a Best Documentary Oscar, Summer of Soul is one of the all-time greats in the niche genre of.. this unbelievable footage has been sitting around for decades and finally someone found it. The tape in question is made up of hours and hours of amazing concert film of the Harlem Cultural Festival which ran over six weeks in the summer of 1969. Yep, the same summer as Woodstock, which got its classic near-four hour doc in 1970. (Also in this particular sub-genre of lost reels: Aretha Franklin performing in a Baptist church in 1972, which got tied up in various issues but was eventually released in the 2018 concert doc Amazing Grace).
Back to Summer of Soul and when we tell you this film may leave you sorta spellbound and speechless we mean it. Stevie Wonder’s here. B.B King, Mahalia Jackson. The 5th Dimension are suitably psychedelic. Gladys Knight & The Pips are electric, drummer Max Roach is on fire. The fashions and the moves are, as they say, outta sight. But the two standouts for us are Nina Simone, whose performance you cannot take your eyes and ears off and who surges towards the urgent political questions that Questlove is interested in, and Sly and The Family Stone, who offer another kind of vision and solidarity in the form of some of the most indelible funk and soul tracks to ever grace the canon. We are not worthy.
Beastie Boys: Awesome; I F*cking Shot That (2006)
So ahead of its time. The Beastie Boys handed out camcorders to 50 audience members at their huge Madison Square Garden show and the result is a concert film that looks like modern day social media feeds, where everyone films gigs all the time, except we’re way back in 2006. It doesn’t feel irritating like it does now, either, instead the joyfully edited result feels genuinely egalitarian. Those crowd reaction shots that started popping up in music docs in the late 50s and 60s? They’re now taken by the crowd themselves: fans singing, shouting and rapping every word, reacting and performing for the camera.
The high energy chaos of the Beasties as a particular hip hop group is matched by all the different angles spliced together: Doug E. Fresh beatboxing, people buying drinks, the lounge band interval sequence, a security guard dancing. It makes for some very funny edits too, like the person who filmed themselves going to the mens’ toilets, while you can hear the tunes getting quieter in the stadium corridors versus what’s on stage. At one point, Ad-Rock, MCA and Mike D even run around MSG and pop up amongst the fans in the cheap seats for Intergalactic. Man, to have been there that night.
Kate Bush: Live At Hammersmith Odeon (1979)
Kate Bush is a kite. Wait, now she has aviator goggles on. Holy shit, she’s got a gun. This 1979 film, shot at the Hammersmith Odeon in London as part of her ‘The Tour of Life’ tour, is as glam-am-dram as it gets: the lighting, the slow-mo, the costume changes, the minimalist props and sets, the zooms. And the thing about Kate Bush is she really believes it. Just take the part where she’s (convincingly) driving an invisible car and compare it to Taylor Swift’s attempts at play-acting. The witchy Brit is always intense without ever being alienating.
She was only about 20 years old at the time and yet the persona was fully formed, whether she’s Expressionist dancing to Hammer Horror or there’s that distinctive voice singing to England, her lionheart. It’s narrative without constraints or expectations. Many imitators, few come close. A 53 minute cut of this concert was initially put out on TV and VHS and now you can also find a 90-odd minute version with more tracks from the night. Those last few moments of Kate clutching flowers and waving are so, so sweet.
Nirvana: MTV Unplugged - Live in New York (1993)
If you grew up in the 90s, even if you were a little too young for grunge like some of us, THIS IS YOUR YOUTH. Kurt Cobain in a cardigan on a swivelly desk chair on MTV. Acoustic Nirvana and cover songs. A young, skinny Dave Grohl in his ponytail and turtleneck drummer days. With an in-the-round stage dressed with white lilies and candles. Truly all so iconic and made more so by the tragic timeline: this was taped in November 1993, MTV first aired the show in December 1993, Cobain died in early April 1994 and DGC Records released the live album six months later in November 1994. Oof.
Featuring cult band the Meat Puppets and cellist Lori Goldston, you can hear the band taking requests and casually chatting about which songs they can do acoustically - Sliver? - as if no-one’s watching. They’re lighting up cigarettes, drinking tea and at one point Cobain semi-affectionately says “fuck you all” to the crowd. They play Come As You Are and cover Bowie’s The Man Who Sold The World but it’s mostly lesser known tracks and covers shouting out their faves like The Vaselines and Lead Belly. Immortal.
Pink Floyd: Live At Pompeii (1972)
OK this one’s a touch self-serious and director Adrian Maben spends maybe a little too much time circling Nick Mason’s drum kit but we also just had to include it. In what other film is Roger Waters dramatically banging a gong in silhouette… in an amphitheatre at Pompeii? Exactly. This Pink Floyd concert film is, in fact, a selection of concerts and studio sessions - there’s no audience for the Pompeii performance so it’s all very much for us, future viewers. And it is goddamn cool, to be fair. Set The Controls For The Heart of The Sun played at night, with the wind flowing through the lads’ hair - just yes.
The chats are interesting too, given current conversations on AI and creativity, with the Floyd making a point of saying that they control the equipment, not the other way around. As this is pre-Dark Side, we see David Gilmour quipping and laying down his lead guitar for Brain Damage in the studio. Plus there’s all manner of woozy, experimental editing and repeated shots to match what’s going on with the synths. It’s a definite mood.
Renaissance: A Film By Beyonce (2023)
Alright, alright, most people would pick Beyonce’s Coachella concert doc Homecoming from 2019 in the Queen Bey slot and we get it. That’s the one that proved to the world that none of the other pop girlies will ever match her on work ethic. But there’s another important aspect of concert films that we’ve overlooked so far: what if you were in fact there to see it all live but you got extremely drunk on triples at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, affectionately threw lemonade over some friends and have a hazy memory of the last say, 45 minutes of the show. For example. Then you might find yourself at the cinema six months later, more than happily watching a concert you’ve seen IRL.
Plus we’re just gonna say it: the music’s better. You could play Renaissance start to finish at a party and get zero complaints. The pop culture artistry, from fearless concept to flawless execution, of the Renaissance tour is also unmatched, even in Beyonce’s own touring history. And this concert film lets you see all the alternate costumes, improvised lines and one-off performance moments from all the dates you didn’t get to - or couldn’t see in detail from your seats up in the gods. One to dance around your living room to. “Look around, everybody on mute..:
Nine Inch Nails: Beside You In Time (2006)
Many of the concert films on this list are here because of the chemistry and playing between members of a band or an incredible array of musicians brought together on one day. No shade to anyone else but NIN is here because of the creative vision and sheer intensity of one man: Trent Reznor. The production is slick, director Rob Sheridan’s trad front-on angles are crisp and the band are really fucking going for it. Reznor is absolutely soaking on stage, calling his fans pigs with glee, his guitarist starts crowd-surfing, there’s a mosh pit getting going. By the end, an amp is thrown off the stage.
Throughout it all, Reznor remains the consummate curator. He brings the tempo down for one intimate, heart-baring song - Hurt, four years after Johnny Cash covered it - with lighters in the audience before hurtling right back into Nine Inch Nails’ signature hard, industrial rock again. Beside You In Time is also something of a historical document, alongside the Beastie Boys film, as The Hand That Feeds is an anti-W song with all the montage projections that go with it. A fun one to revisit if you’ve mostly consumed Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ music via their excellent film soundtracks for the past decade or so. (Sidenote: we found this one together with the Depeche Mode classic on Qello, which we just now learned is a subscription service for concert films that you can access via Prime Video).
Fleetwood Mac: The Rosebud film (1977)
![Fleetwood Mac - Rhiannon (Official Music Video) [HD] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/jQAK6sVovUk/maxresdefault.jpg)
There are so many Fleetwood Mac performances available to pour over that picking our fave would be like picking just the one Grateful Dead bootleg. The official concert film (and live album) comes much later with The Dance, in Nashville in the mid-90s, but we have a soft spot for a 30-minute concert doc from 1977. The ‘Rosebud film’ was made by Michael Collins to promote the European leg of the Rumours tour so we’re right in the thick of this band’s heyday.
A mixture of a low-key, outdoor live show at the University of California, Santa Barbara, with some indoor tour rehearsals and behind the scenes chatter, it’s a real slice of life for the Mac of the late 70s. With tunes including Rhiannon, Go Your Own Way and You Make Loving Fun, we get Stevie Nicks shimmering around the stage looking witchy, Lindsey Buckingham strumming in a tight coral cardigan and the late Christine McVie explaining that she only ever wrote songs when they were about to start working on a new record.
Jazz on a Summer’s Day (1959)
Oh my days, is there anything as joyous as Louis Armstrong smiling and cracking jokes? Only Louis Armstrong singing, we guess, and Louis Armstrong playing the trumpet. Photographer Bert Stern’s film of the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958 was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress for good reason - it forms a kind of blueprint for concert films. We can take or leave the America’s Cup sailing scenes but otherwise this is one of those ridiculous line-ups that some of the people caught eating and chatting and yawning clearly did not fully comprehend.
Aram Avakian’s editing is superb here, as we roam around footage of people dancing on roofs, smooching in windowsills, kids playing and a car stuffed with a quintet playing When The Saints.. as they roll around town. As for the music, phew boy: it’s Dinah Washington singing All of Me and having a xylophone battle on-stage as the cameramen capture dancers in the audience in close-up. Thelonious bloody Monk and a young Roy Haynes early on. A big-hatted Anita O’Day winning hearts and minds with her virtuoso scatting. Mahalia Jackson doing The Lord’s Prayer. Chuck Berry! Instant mood-lifter.
Depeche Mode: 101 (1989)
A perfect tour bus film with a twist: in 101 we follow Depeche Mode, ten months into touring, as they gear up to an epic live show at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena in ‘88, playing to over 60,000 fans. And we follow a bunch of hand-picked scene kids and glam punks, travelling across the country to scream and shout and dance at the front of the crowds. The at-the-time mega star band check out new instruments and plays pinball in between shows, not to mention getting nervous and moaning about being tired. Martin Gore and Andrew Fletcher do silly radio promo and Dave Gahan talks about picking up steroids for his poor vocal chords backstage.
The 101st concert itself delivers, with dark wave tracks like Stripped from Black Celebration sounding glorious and one of the catchiest songs ever made, Just Can’t Get Enough, getting the audience jumpin’. Even as the audio engineer struggles with the sound in the venue. It’s the cuts to the girl punching in the lighting cues in real-time at an earlier gig, the teens bleaching their hair and the tour accountant trying to find out who spent 1000 dollars on silver t-shirts that really make this concert film, though. Oh, and it ends with them boarding a Depeche Mode PJ. Pair this one with 2025’s Depeche Mode (M) on Netflix.
Placebo: Live in Paris - Soulmates Never Die (2003)
“A friend in need’s a friend indeed, a friend with weed is better”... If you were a Placebo fan in the early aughts, you couldn’t want for much more than this: The Bitter End, Pure Morning, Every Me Every You and Special K on the set list, the chipped black nail polish on Stefan Olsdal’s hands as he shreds, Brian Molko’s impeccable French patter.. and the iconic moment where they look at each over the synth pad and Molko takes a drag of his cigarette.
There’s also the small matter of Placebo bringing out the Pixies’ Frank Black for the last song of the night: Where Is My Mind?
For those of us who weren’t quite on that wave back in 2003, remember this was a live concert DVD release. You had to actually get your hands on the thing, making it more rarified and thus legendary. That’s no doubt part of why this is many people’s fave concert film of all time. It’s pretty classic staging - hella lot of strobing lights - and straight-on photographing for the 2000s but there is huge energy coming from a huge crowd. The emo/glam/punk/alt rock band were ve-ery popular and that passion still vibrates off the screen.
American Utopia (2020)
We know, we know, another David Byrne concert film on the list. But just when you think you’ve seen concert films from every angle, along comes another idiosyncratically conceived live show from this wonderful man’s head. This was a Broadway show, captured for posterity by auteur Spike Lee, and incorporating more political elements than you might first think. American Utopia was a tonic to many music fans during the pandemic and it’s recently been announced that it’s returning to UK cinemas in 4K for one night only this August.
Byrne is part marching-band-leader, part preacher, all showman as he and an eleven-strong troupe of musicians and dancers roam free around the stage thanks to fully wireless instruments. They’re barefoot, wearing matching blue-grey suits and working through a setlist which includes tunes from the 2018 American Utopia album and the Talking Heads back catalogue. If it sounds strange, that’s because it is, delightfully so. We’re not sure any of this will catch on more broadly in live performances but that’s really not the point.
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