John Lennon & The Plastic Ono Band Live in Toronto 1969 Is Some Weird Shit

In 1969 John Lennon & Yoko Ono famously held a two week "bed in" to peacefully protest the Vietnam War. The first one took place in Amsterdam and the second was to be held in New York, but Lennon was banned from the US due to his Cannabis conviction.  They moved the bed in to the Bahamas but the heat bothered them so they moved it to again to Montreal, where it was documented by the CBC. The images below were taken by the CBC and were featured in an exhibition on the event at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art. More info on that here.

That same year John Lennon and The Plastic Ono Band played the Toronto Peace Festival. The band, which also featured Eric Clapton, Klaus Voorman (who designed The Beatles Revolver album Cover) and Yes drummer Alan White, were billed with Little Richard, Bo Diddley and Jerry Lee Lewis.

A live version of the performance was recorded and released on record in 1969, while the film footage, directed by D.A. Pennebaker, was released as Sweet Toronto in 1971. Both have been reissued within the last couple years.

Many people are familiar with the band's song, "Give Peace A Chance", but I don't think most people just how weird, and good this band was. Beatles fans obviously hate it, which explains why the were almost booed off the stage. Below is a clip.

For those who do like it. I would highly suggest you pick up John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band, which was co-produced by Phil Spector and Yoko's companion record, Yoko Ono / Plastic Ono Band. Both covers are shown below and if you look closely you'll see that they're not identical.