When The Band were taped in concert at Asbury Park’s Casino Arena on July 20, 1976—thirty eight years ago yesterday to be exact—plans were already afoot for their final appearance that fall in San Francisco that would be filmed for Martin Scorsese’s documentary, The Last Waltz. Knowing that this show would be among their final onstage outings together as a band, The Band are in fine form here, the energy is high and, as always, the musicianship is as good as it gets.

Recently, I posted about the full “Last Waltz” concert as it was recorded via Winterlands house video feed which is fascinating on so many levels, but not the least of which is hearing The Band without all of the studio fussing and overdubs that Robbie Robertson is famous (infamous?) for. Here, as with that (truly incredible) “Alternate Last Waltz” video, what we have is The Band, a group fabled for their near-telepathic communication as musicians as they actually sounded in the raw… damned good! (And unlike in The Last Waltz, you get to see the other band members besides Robbie Robertson. At least you can see the top of Garth Hudson’s head from time to time!)

The version of “The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show” at 1:12:00 is a must listen—it might be my top favorite song by The Band—and the final encore of “Life Is A Carnival” that follows it is a thing of great beauty also.

Until or unless a full show from The Band taped after this one turns up, I guess you could call this one the “next to last waltz.”