John Lennon Said George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh Was an ‘Absolute Rip-Off’
TL;DR:
- George Harrison said John Lennon helped inspire the Concert for Bangladesh.
- John Lennon said the charity concert George Harrison organized was a rip-off.
- John Lennon did not perform at the concert for Bangladesh.
Though George Harrison invited him to play, John Lennon was not one of the performing artists at the Concert for Bangladesh. The concert, which Harrison organized with Ravi Shankar, raised money for refugees. His former bandmate Ringo Starr agreed to play in the show, but both Lennon and Paul McCartney refused. When talking about it later, Lennon said the entire show was a “rip-off.”
George Harrison said John Lennon inspired him to organize the Concert for Bangladesh
When speaking about his decision to organize the Concert for Bangladesh, Harrison cited Lennon as an inspiration. Lennon’s antiwar activism had gotten him in trouble, and an interviewer wondered if that had concerned Harrison. It actually had the opposite effect on the former Beatle.
“No, not really,” he said, per the book George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters. “I think that was one of the things that I developed, just by being in the Beatles, was being bold. And I think John had a lot to do with that, you know, cause John Lennon, you know, if he felt something strongly, he just did it. And you know, I picked up a lot of that by being a friend of John’s. Just that attitude of, ‘Well, we’ll just go for it, just do it.'”
Because of Lennon, Harrison also decided to film the concert as a way to make more money.
The former Beatle described the concert as a ‘rip-off’
Though he emboldened Harrison to put on the Concert for Bangladesh, Lennon didn’t have many complimentary words about the charity event. He said he would much prefer to make any charitable donations privately.
“I am just going to do it privately,” he told Playboy in 1980. “I am not going to get locked into that business of saving the world onstage. The show is always a mess and the artist always comes off badly.”
The interviewer asked if he lumped in the Concert for Bangladesh with this generalization. “Bangladesh was caca,” Lennon replied.
Lennon took issue with the fact that the musicians were not paid.
“Everybody else is getting paid except for the musicians,” he said, per the book The Beatles Diary Volume 2: After the Breakup. “It’s an absolute rip-off, but it makes the artist look good.”
John Lennon did not perform at the concert, but George Harrison did
Relations between the former members of The Beatles were rocky, so Lennon and McCartney were on the fence about performing. Lennon eventually agreed, but on the stipulation that Yoko Ono perform with him. Harrison refused, and Lennon later agreed to perform alone. When Ono found out, the couple fought heatedly, and Lennon backed out. McCartney did not perform either.
The musicians who performed in the show included Harrison, Shankar, Starr, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, and Leon Russell.
