The Last Waltz was a concert by the Canadian-American rock group The Band, held on American Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1976, at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco.

The Last Waltz was advertised as the Band's "farewell concert appearance",[2] and the concert had the Band joined by more than a dozen special guests, including their previous employers Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan, as well as Paul Butterfield, Bobby Charles, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Emmylou Harris, Dr. John, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, The Staple Singers, Ringo Starr, Muddy Waters, Ronnie Wood, and Neil Young.

The concert was produced and managed by Bill Graham and was filmed by director Martin Scorsese, who made it into a documentary of the same title, released in 1978.

The film features concert performances, intermittent song renditions shot on a studio soundstage, and interviews by Scorsese with members of the Band.

Further genres are explored in segments filmed later on a sound stage with Emmylou Harris (country) and the Staple Singers (soul and gospel).

The film begins with the Band performing the last song of the evening, their cover version of the Marvin Gaye hit "Don't Do It", as an encore.

The Band is backed by a large horn section and performs many of its hit songs, including "Up on Cripple Creek", "Stage Fright", and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down".

The live songs are interspersed with studio segments and interviews conducted by director Martin Scorsese in which the Band's members reminisce about the group's history.

A recurring theme brought up in the interviews with Robertson is that the concert marks an end of an era for the Band, that after 16 years on the road, the time had come for a change.

[8] With only six weeks before the planned date, Robertson called director Martin Scorsese, who he knew loved rock music and had worked at the Woodstock Festival, to see if he would direct it as a concert documentary.

"[8] The group promoted the concert by appearing on the October 30 episode of Saturday Night Live, where host Buck Henry introduced them by saying they were about to disband on Thanksgiving.

They went into a set of "Life Is a Carnival" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" (which featured a photo montage of the Band throughout their career) both sung by Helm, Danko then sang "Stage Fright" and closed out the episode with a cover of "Georgia on My Mind" with Manuel on lead vocals.

Promoted and organized by Bill Graham, whose home turf was Winterland and who had a long association with the Band, the concert was an elaborate affair, with over 300 workers.

Poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Lenore Kandel, Diane di Prima, Michael McClure, Robert Duncan, and Freewheelin' Frank[12] gave readings.

Robertson had produced Diamond's album Beautiful Noise the same year and co-wrote "Dry Your Eyes", which during the concert he hailed as a "great song".

[13] Van Morrison then performed two songs, a special arrangement of "Tura Lura Lural (That's an Irish Lullaby)" as a duet with Richard Manuel and his own show-stopper, "Caravan".

"Jam #1" featured the Band minus Richard Manuel playing with Neil Young, Ronnie Wood, and Eric Clapton on guitar, Dr. John on piano, Paul Butterfield on harmonica, and Ringo Starr on drums.

The Band reformed without Robertson in 1980 and headlined at The Roxy in Los Angeles with Scottish group Blue supporting, guests were Dr. John and Joe Cocker.

Rick Danko later performed at various Los Angeles venues along with Blue, and at his invitation, they recorded their LA Sessions album at Shangri-La Studios.

[14] Kovács, frustrated by Scorsese's constant instructions, had removed his headset earlier in the evening and had not heard the orders to stop filming.

Also omitted were performances by poets Lenore Kandel, Robert Duncan, Freewheelin' Frank Reynolds, Emmett Grogan, Diane DiPrima and Sweet William.

[8] To add to the confusion, Scorsese said that when Dylan got on stage, the sound was so loud he did not know what to shoot: "Fortunately, we got our cues right and we shot the two songs that were used in the film.

Finally, according to musical director John Simon, during post-production, the live recording was altered to clean up "playing mistakes, out-of-tune singing, bad horn-balance in the remote truck.

During the editing process, Scorsese and Robertson became friends, and frequently collaborated on further projects, with Robertson acting as music producer and consultant on Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, The Color of Money, Casino, Gangs of New York, The Departed, Shutter Island, The Wolf of Wall Street, Silence, The Irishman and Killers of the Flower Moon.

The website's critical consensus reads, "Among one of, if not the best rock movie ever made, The Last Waltz is a revealing, electrifying view of the classic band at their height.

[32] Janet Maslin of The New York Times gave it a negative review, stating that it "articulates so little of the end-of-an-era feeling it hints at ... that it's impossible to view the Last Waltz as anything but an also-ran.

He praises the blues numbers by Muddy Waters and Paul Butterfield, the horn arrangements by Allen Toussaint, and the "blistering if messy" guitar duet by Robertson and Eric Clapton.

[19] Helm was also dissatisfied with Manuel and Hudson's minimal screen time and the fact most of the band members never received any money for the various home videos, DVDs and soundtracks released by Warner Bros. after the project.

A bonus scene is footage of "Jam #2", which is cut short because they had run out of replacement sound synchronizers for the cameras after ten hours of continuous filming.

It has many songs not in the film, including "Down South in New Orleans" with Bobby Charles and Dr. John on guitar, "Tura Lura Lural (That's an Irish Lullaby)" by Van Morrison, "Life is a Carnival" by the Band, and "I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)" by Bob Dylan.