Live Version
"Bangla Desh" was played as an encore at both of the Madison Square Garden shows on 1 August 1971, with the evening performance being selected for inclusion on the Concert for Bangladesh triple live album. After the familiar introduction to the song, the band "threw their full weight behind Harrison", Lavezzoli writes, "playing the darkest and heaviest music of the show". On release that December, Jon Landau of Rolling Stone identified the song as "the concert's single greatest performance by all concerned", and opined that by the close of the show, the lyrics to Harrison's single were "no longer an expression of intent but of an accomplished mission − help has been given, people have been reached, an effort has been made and results will be felt". Played at a faster tempo than the studio recording, the live version of "Bangla Desh" "roars and rages to a stunning close", Richard Williams of Melody Maker enthused; it features a "blistering" saxophone solo from Horn and an "astonishingly powerful" vocal from Harrison, which Leng describes as "a pure act of zeal". As shown in the concert film, following a brief guitar solo towards the end of the song, Harrison repeats the line "Relieve the people of Bangla Desh" before exiting the stage to "thunderous" applause, while the band plays on. Rodriguez describes this live performance as perhaps Harrison's "high water mark of public esteem".
Despite his reported eagerness to repeat the experience of these New York shows, Harrison never played "Bangla Desh" in concert after 1971 and he did not perform live again until his 1974 North American tour with Shankar. By that point, the Bangladesh Liberation War had long ended, with India's defeat of the Pakistani army in December 1971, but Bangladesh was now experiencing a devastating famine that would account for up to 1.5 million lives. During a concert in Los Angeles on 11 November, Harrison responded to requests for the song "Bangla Desh" with a suggestion that the audience instead chant "Krishna, Krishna, Krishna" and use the positive power of mantra to help the Bangladeshi population.
Read more about this topic: Bangla Desh (song)
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