The Last Set

Before the day was out, Director Martin Scorsese had 400 reels of film, Capitol Records had the makings for a new live album, and 5,000 fans of first-class countrified rock had had one final look at The Band. After 16 years, some of them spent as Bob Dylan's back-up group, Guitarist Robbie Robertson, Bassist Rick Danko, Organist Garth Hudson. Drummer Levon Helm and Pianist Richard Manuel had come to San Francisco's Winterland for their final live performance together.

The host of the Thanksgiving Day get-together, billed as The Last Waltz, was Rock Impresario Bill Graham. He treated his $25-a-ticket patrons to a truckload of turkey and Alaskan salmon, a 38-piece waltz-playing orchestra, and decor featuring 25-ft. tall columns from the set of La Traviata carted over from the San Francisco Opera. Those folk who tend to sniff at such goings on could adjourn to the Cocteau Room, where the walls were covered with protruding noses.

Somehow the lavish trappings seemed out of tune with the guests of honor. From The Band's first album, Music from Big Pink (1968), to their eighth, Northern Lights-Southern Cross, last year, the group has combined the primal energy of roadhouse rock 'n' roll with a down-home vision of America, particularly the South. Robbie Robertson's haunting folk ballad The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down recalls a traditional Civil War song: "Virgil Cane is the name/ And I served on the Danville train/ Til Stoneman's cavalry came/ And tore up the tracks again./ In the winter of '65, we were hungry and barely alive."

The Band members became owners of houses in Malibu, and the fun of touring eventually faded. After a desultory summer of canceled concerts and mixed reviews, they decided, in Robertson's words, "to bring it to a head. We're going to conclude this chapter of our lives." So, with dinner out of the way, the group took the stage at Winterland last week for one final, marathon 37-song set. On hand for the grand farewell: old friends like Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, and finally Dylan himself. Their last number, Dylan's I Shall Be Released, began with the line: "They say everything can be replaced." Perhaps.

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