A remastered version of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Power To The People concert film is coming to cinemas worldwide.
Following on from the extensive NYC-era box set released last year, the film is a document of the ‘One To One’ concerts that the couple held at New York’s Madison Square Garden on August 30, 1972. The two performances, one a matinee show and the other in the evening, were Lennon’s only full-length concerts after leaving The Beatles, and they were also the last gigs John and Yoko played together.
Now, a restored, re-edited and remixed version of the concert film, officially titled Power To The People: John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band with Elephant’s Memory and Special Guests – Live at the One To One Concert, New York City, 1972, will be shown in cinemas “worldwide” on April 29 and May 3.
The new version of the film, which was captured at the time by director Steve Gebhardt, has been “physically and digitally cleaned by hand” by Lennon’s regular Grammy-winning team, led by son Sean Ono Lennon.
Tickets will go on sale on March 20, to coincide with John and Yoko’s 57th wedding anniversary, and fans can sign up for more information about screenings here.
The ‘One To One’ shows saw the couple play to over 40,000 people and raised more than $1.5million (2026 equivalent of $11.5million) for disabled children. They played songs including ‘Imagine’, ‘Come Together’, ‘Instant Karma!’ and ‘Hound Dog’, and rounded out the show with a version of ‘Give Peace A Chance’ with Stevie Wonder.
“That Madison Square Garden gig was the best music I enjoyed playing since The Cavern or even Hamburg,” John Lennon told NME of the MSG shows in 1972. “It was just the same kind of feeling when The Beatles used to really get into it.”
Sean Ono Lennon has said: “It was a concert that had a legendary status in my mind, because it was my dad’s last concert. I remember wanting a Les Paul because he played Les Paul during that show. I feel very grateful I got to work on it because he did plan on touring and he didn’t get to, so all we’ve got is this concert.”
“And I think it is very beautiful because it is so unlike what people were doing at the time,” he added. “Everybody was getting into slicker and slicker stuff in the early ‘70s, and I think my dad was already kind of pre-empting the arrival of punk. He just wanted to go back to basics and be raw and spontaneous and rock ‘n’ roll. It’s a very cool thing he was doing that was very against the grain. Maybe not everyone realises how special it is for me to hear my dad talking or to see him. I grew up with a set number of images and audio clips that everyone’s familiar with. So to come across things that I’ve never seen or heard is really deep for me, because it’s almost like getting more time with my dad.”
A 123-song box set of rarities and unreleased tracks from John and Yoko’s time in New York City in the early ‘70s was released in October, chronicling the couple’s most politically active period.
In a preface to the box set, Yoko wrote: “The ‘One To One’ concert was our effort in Grassroots Politics. It embodied what John and I strongly believed in – Rock for Peace and Enlightenment. And this one in Madison Square Garden turned out to be the last concert John and I did together. Imagine Peace. Peace is Power. Power To The People!”
