Power to the People: John & Yoko Live in NYC

Given a short cinema release in April 2026, this film remixes and restores John Lennon and Yoko Ono's 1972 One to One concerts at Madison Square Garden, New York, John's only full-length post-Beatles concerts. We look at the context: this is shortly after the release of Sometime in New York City, an album which hadn't gone down well with fans or critics. Does this explain the seeming audience relief at hearing songs from other albums? We also look at Yoko Ono as an "anti-rock" vocalist, and discuss Imagine: as this was its only concert performance by its author, did the song escape the singalong anthem status it might otherwise have had?

• The film has no streaming release date set at the moment, but generally these short cinema runs are a preamble to an imminent streaming release so we'd expect one soon. https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/power-to-the-people-john-and-yoko-live-in-nyc
• Watch the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7DztEZ86IY
• Bruce Channel's Hey Baby, part of the brief 1962 harmonica craze into which Love Me Do slotted: https://youtu.be/Ync7jflOzuA
• Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak, which started the popularity for autotune: https://open.spotify.com/album/5ykOQlHaE5ZRxMibfI75YW?si=csCzZXmhSqe0uUhNISzyXw
• The Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense: https://a24films.com/films/stop-making-sense

Meet the Beatles Films Podcast

The Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.

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