The Band on SNL — October 30, 1976

Nearly fifty years ago -- on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1976 -- the great rock band The Band gave their final performance (with the original lineup) at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, CA. 

It was a nearly six-hour long show where The Band played their greatest hits ("Up on Cripple Creek", "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", "It Makes No Difference") with with many guests including Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Ronnie Hawkins, Van Morrison, Neil Diamond, Neil Young, and Mr Bob Dylan (amongst others). 

The concert was filmed by Martin Scorsese (the same year that Taxi Driver was release) and it became a landmark documentary, considered one of the greatest concert documentaries ever made, called The Last Waltz.

This one concert -“The end of an era” was how many people referred to the close of 1976. The dreams of the 60s and early 70s had faded, and we were ready for a revelation, a revolt, a changing of the guard. Punk rock—and, later, hip-hop—wanted to give music and culture a good slap in the face. It felt like everyone wanted to break something. - performed and recorded just over a month before my birth -- was a singular moment in music and cultural history. Robbie Robertson, the lead guitarist and chief lyricist for The Band wrote, in 2016:

“The end of an era” was how many people referred to the close of 1976. The dreams of the 60s and early 70s had faded, and we were ready for a revelation, a revolt, a changing of the guard. Punk rock—and, later, hip-hop—wanted to give music and culture a good slap in the face. It felt like everyone wanted to break something.

The end of that era, that faded world, was what I was born into -- and its intense to think about, how my beginning was at the end of something.

I love the music of The Band, and I went to see a re-release of The Last Waltz with my friends in 2002. As mentioned, the concert took place in San Francisco but, about a month earlier, The Band appeared on Saturday Night Live and was introduced by the writer-actor Buck Henry who mentioned that their final show was coming up. 

What an amazing moment in culture -- and in the history of SNL, NYC, and the culture at large.