By Bob Trate, Director of Programming

The Colonial has a fantastic collection of filmed concerts and music documentaries coming this Fall allowing you to remember, embrace, and (re)discover these artists.

PAUL MCCARTNEY AND WINGS – ONE HAND CLAPPING. Directed by David Litchfield, this film captured a moment when Paul McCartney and Wings had found and defined their signature sound. Filmed over four days at Abbey Road Studios in August 1974, the film provides an insight into the inner workings of the band as they work and play together in the studio. Including performances of tracks from Wings masterpiece Band on the Run (released in 1973), intimate footage of the band hanging out in the studio, combined with audio interview snippets, the film also includes previously unreleased full footage of a solo acoustic performance by Paul called The Backyard Sessions.

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The Blues Under the Skin. In the early 1970s, during a resurgence of interest in the Delta blues,  music documentarian Roviros Manthoulis traveled to the Mississippi Delta to capture on film the remnants of the authentic American blues. Traveling throughout the deep South, Manthoulis filmed candid interviews and intimate performances by such legends B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, Mance Lipscomb, Bukka White, and Roosevelt Sykes. His objective was to not only document the music but also penetrate the surface of the blues and explore the emotional and sociopolitical factors that make it such an expressive and haunting musical form.

Blurring the line between documentary and fiction, The Blues Under The Skin dramatizes the tumultuous relationship of a young couple (Onike Lee and Roland Sanchez) as they struggle to overcome the barriers of poverty and prejudice that keep them from finding happiness together.

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Music for Mushrooms. Music for Mushrooms is a narrative documentary highlighting the personal journey of shamanistic musician and filmmaker East Forest (Krishna-Trevor Oswalt) – a collaborator of the late Ram Dass – whose bold experiments pair music with guided psychedelic experiences to create spaces of healing for a fractured world.

The film captures East Forest as he discovers a practice of guided ceremonial concerts that offer participants an immersive environment to confront their pain and fears, fostering hope, and moving them to re-engage with their own true north.

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TOM PETTY: HEARTBREAKERS BEACH PARTY. In 2024, the long-thought lost 16mm reels of Tom Petty in Cameron Crowe’s first film, “Heartbreakers Beach Party”, were finally found. The classic ‘80s documentary captures Tom Petty and the band in 1982-1983 as they finish, promote, and tour around the “Long After Dark” album (their final with legendary producer Jimmy Iovine). After its initial airing on MTV in 1983, the film was deemed too experimental and abruptly pulled from the air. In the more than 40 years since, it has become folklore to fans, musicians and within the entertainment industry – even credited with inspiring scenes in Spinal Tap. The highly anticipated & fully remastered “Heartbreakers Beach Party” is a fun, candid, fast paced, & musically rich ride with America’s greatest rock & roll band, a time capsule of the dawn of the MTV era, and a rare & shining glimpse into Tom Petty’s lasting creative genius.

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The Last Waltz. “More than just one of the greatest concert films ever made, The Last Waltz is an at once ecstatic and elegiac summation of a vital era in American rock music. Invited to capture the farewell performance of the legendary group the Band at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom on Thanksgiving, 1976, Martin Scorsese conceived a new kind of music documentary. Enlisting seven camera operators (led by director of photography Michael Chapman, and also including renowned cinematographers Vilmos Zsigmond and László Kovács) and production designer Boris Leven to design the strikingly theatrical sets, Scorsese created a grandly immersive experience that brings viewers onstage and inside the music itself. That music—as performed by the Band and a host of other generation-defining artists, including Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, the Staple Singers, Muddy Waters, and Neil Young—lives on as an almost religious expression of the transcendent possibilities of rock and roll.” – Criterion. Sponsored by The Record Shop.

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