A concert movie, or concertfilm, is a type of documentary movie whose subject is an extended live performance by a musician (or, more recently, by a comedian).
Typically, concertfilms have simple, descriptive names such as "(performer) Live", "(performer) In Concert".
Early concertfilms include Woodstock (1970, focusing on the Woodstock Festival), The Concert for Bangladesh (1972, focusing on the August 1, 1971 Madison Square Garden concert organized by George Harrison for the benefit of Bangladeshi refugees), and Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1973, focusing on David Bowie's July 3, 1973 concert).
The video of the film was released on October 25, 1990, and the DVD was released on December 31, 1999.
The first attempt was the filming (by Peter Whitehead and Stanley Dorfman) of Led Zeppelin's Royal Albert Hall performance on January 9, 1970, but the lighting was judged to be mediocre, and the film was shelved (this footage was later remastered and featured on the 2003 release Led Zeppelin DVD).
For all of its technical faults, today many view the film as an interesting historical document that captured the band at a particular point in time when its popularity was about to peak, and, on a more general level, as an accurate representation of the excesses of the music and show-business industries in the 1970s.
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