50 Years Ago Today: The Band Warm Up for ‘The Last Waltz’ in Asbury Park
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- The Band played the Casino Arena in Asbury Park on July 20, 1976, four months before The Last Waltz, and promoter John Scher's venue video system captured the show on multiple cameras, with the tapes preserved ever since.
- Levon Helm wrote in his 1993 memoir that The Last Waltz was "a disaster" and "a real scandal," and producer John Simon told him "Levon is the only honest, live element in The Last Waltz," with Richard Manuel's vocals, Rick Danko's bass, Robbie Robertson's guitar solos, and the horns all overdubbed later in New York.
- The 1976 Casino Arena footage shows the band with no guest artists, no post-production overdubs, Richard Manuel visible near center stage on lead vocals and piano, and the camera not lingering disproportionately on Robbie Robertson — a corrective to The Last Waltz's staging and editing choices.
- Asbury Park Press staff writer Marty Parkin reported the Casino Arena's sound was "abysmal" — Southside Johnny's wife Betty Lyon and Asbury Jukes keyboardist Kevin Kavanaugh left after a few numbers — and the venue stopped booking rock concerts after 1976.
- Garth Hudson's death last year left no surviving classic-era members of the Band; Robbie Robertson died in 2023, Richard Manuel in 1986, and Rick Danko in 1999, and the Casino itself (immortalized in Springsteen's "Sandy") is now a dilapidated structure rumored to face demolition.
- The Band reconvened in 1983 without Robertson and cut three albums, with guitarist Jim Weider filling Robertson's role; Weider now fronts the Weight Band, which tours dates through fall and straddles the line between tribute act and legitimate continuation.
Why it matters: For fans and historians, this 1976 footage is a rare, unmanipulated document of what The Band actually sounded like live, since most of their original-run shows were never filmed and The Last Waltz — long treated as the definitive document — was extensively overdubbed per producer John Simon. With all five classic-era members now dead, the surviving tapes may be the closest thing left to an honest visual record of the group's chemistry.
