The One to One Afternoon Concert

On February 2nd, 1972 Geraldo Rivera aired a report on ABC documenting the physical and sexual abuse suffered by children with intellectual disabilities at Willowbrook State School. Lennon had seen Rivera’s report and contacted him suggesting they organize a benefit concert. “Demos” for the concert took place on August 5th and were captured by WABC’s Eyewitness News. Rehearsals took place on August 18th, 21st, 22nd, and the 24-26th.

After the event sold out, a second Afternoon concert was added to take place at 2PM. The concert, dubbed "The Rehearsal" by John, included performances from the Sha Na Nas and Stevie Wonder (with Wonderlove). A few hours into the show, Elephants Memory performed, and were then joined by John and Yoko, with ‘Power to the People’ playing over the PA system. The band would play through a number of songs, a good number of which had not been played prior and would not be played after. The performance of ‘Don’t Worry Kyoko’ is particularly interesting as it was not played at the evening concert.

Despite being the worse performance, the original 1986 release of the shows mostly consisted of this 2PM show due to noise levels on the evening’s tape. The show has a messy release history. 'Power to the People', 'New York City', 'It's So Hard', 'Woman is the Nigger of the World', 'Well, Well, Well', 'Instant Karma', 'Mother', 'Come Together', and 'Imagine' appeared on the 1986 'Live In New York City' CD. An alternate edit with verses 1 and 3 of 'New York City' (as opposed to the CD's verses 1 and 2) appeared on the 1986 DVD, as well as a performance of 'Born In A Prison'. The versions of 'Sisters, O Sisters', 'We’re All Water', 'Cold Turkey', and 'Hound Dog' from this show have not been released. 'Move On Fast', 'Don’t Worry Kyoko', and 'Open Your Box' have no official release for either show. All songs not released officially have been captured by an audience recording.