TEMPERATURE’S RISING
A new film about John Lennon and Yoko Ono's radical 1971-73 is full of fear, intimacy and great music. "I was completely floored," Sean Lennon tells Danny Eccleston.
Together stronger: John and Yoko on-stage at Madison Square Garden, NYC, August 30, 1972.
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IT’S 1972 and John Lennon is talking to drummer Jim Keltner on the phone, about a tour he’s planning that will end in Miami Beach to coincide with a protest at August’s Republican National Convention. The ex-Beatle’s ongoing challenge to President Nixon and the US political establishment has him buzzing, but Keltner sounds a note of concern. Does Lennon realise he’s playing with fire? Has he considered the risks?
Lifted from a recently discovered box of tapes, the audio is one of the stars of One To One: John & Yoko, Kevin Macdonald and Sam Rice-Edwards’ vivid and visceral new film about Lennon and Yoko Ono’s period of controversial activism, 1971-73. The pair’s recorded phone conversations with Keltner, Allen Klein, MC5 manager John Sinclair and more provide some of the film’s most surprising insights. One viewer was particularly struck.