Bob Marley and the Wailers Live Forever

Bob Marley's final concert at the Stanley Theatre in Pittsburgh has circulated among the bootleg/taper-trader community for years... audience recordings of the night are not exactly a hot commodity. The Wailers crew, however, always ran a soundboard recording of their shows, and this concert recording 2-CD set is made from those tapes, remastered. It was an outstanding night, and Marley fans everywhere should be happy that it's living on.

On September 23, 1980, Bob Marley played his final concert at the Stanley Theatre in Pittsburgh, PA. The malignant melanoma that would end his life less than a year later had already metastasized throughout his body, and he had collapsed in Central Park during a jog just two days prior.

But Marley was a consummate performer, one who felt a deep spiritual connection to his music and his audiences and the entire experience of a concert. He took the stage and opened the night with "Greetings in the name of His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Haile Selassie, Jah Rastafari, who liveth and reigneth I'n'I itinually, ever faithful, ever sure. They say experience teacheth wisdom, but there's a natural mystic blowing through the air," and then the one drop kicks in and the concert begins with "Natural Mystic." And thus is born the stuff of legends.

Tearing through a number of his greatest hits, including passionate political songs like "Burnin' and Lootin'," "Them Belly Full," and "Zimbabwe," as well as spiritual numbers like "Jammin'" and the aforementioned "Natural Mystic," and the always-stirring love songs "Is This Love" and "No Woman, No Cry." He also rattled off a few new songs from his most recent release, Uprising, including a mostly-solo acoustic guitar-driven "Redemption Song," which is, in a word, stunning.

The final song Bob Marley played that night and, indeed, the final song he ever played in front of an audience, was "Get Up, Stand Up." "You can fool some people sometimes, but you can't fool all the people all the time. Now we see the light, we gonna stand up for our rights!" The audience goes crazy, singing along and cheering. The Wailers are exquisite, the I Threes in fine form, everything aligns, magic happens. What a fitting finale to an entirely-too-short but astounding concert and, indeed, career.