The Band (featuring Muddy Waters) - "Mannish Boy"

"Whoa yeah."

I've watched this video so many times in my life, it's frightening how well I know it.

The Band's 1978 concert film, the Last Waltz, is without question the all-time greatest of its kind. Meant to signal the end of an era, the Band hired Martin Scorcese to document their 'final' performance as a group, and they were certainly one of the best of their generation.

Joining them on stage for this show were Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Ronnie Hawkins, Dr. John, and plenty of others. It is a tour de force film that remarkably is always in the discount bin at HMV. Buy it!

My favourite clip from the show is one that came dangerously close to never being caught on film. Shortly after blues legend Muddy Waters and the Band began thumping along to Waters' classic "Mannish Boy", all of the cameras filming the movie crapped out. All but Laszlo Kovacs, that is.

Kovacs alone captures all but the beginning and ending of the song as the other cameramen scrambled to grab new cameras or change their bulbs. But Kovacs, presumably unaware of the production chaos around him slowly directs his lens into a close-up of Waters' dramatic face as he delivers a masterful and emotional performance. The moment when he rasps "well, well, well" smacking the mic is a gem.

Kovacs wasn't just the right man in the right place; he was the Director of Photography for classic films Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, and later in life, Miss Congeniality. Well, they can't all be classics. But that Kovacs' steady hand was there to capture Waters and the Band, and that he had the presence of mind to keep the shot tight on Waters for a majority of the song is one of those special never-to-be-duplicated moments that gives me goosebumps whenever I see it.