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The greatest concert you never saw

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The ransom-like ticket prices, the unbearable heat, and those weird naked people next to you - yep, nothing says "good times" quite like a rock concert. So why, then, are concert films such hit-and-miss propositions? There have been many of them, but only a select few have fully articulated the magic of live performance on the big screen.

With the recent release of Shine A Light, Martin Scorsese's winning documentary of The Rolling Stones in concert, and U2 3D, U2's inventively titled look at themselves in 3-D, we decided to assess the best concert films in history - those movies that capture the true essence of music as it happens, its affect on an audience, and why staring at some weird naked people is just so damn fascinating.

1. A Hard Day's Night (1964)

Okay, so it's not really a concert movie, but the four-song wham-bam closer of Tell My Why, If I Fell, I Should've Known Better and She Loves You feels like the best one you've never attended but always wished you'd had. Shot during the full bloom of Beatlemania, the film's denouement sees The Beatles (the band's name is never mentioned, by the way), drunk with success but thankfully not housebroken, ringing in the '60s before a dream audience of girls, all of whom are in a state of sustained orgasm. To miss this is akin to denying yourself food and water.

2. The Last Waltz (1978)

After 16 years of being touted as legends, The Band packed it in to make it official. (They seemed to know, even then, that the only way we could miss them was to go away.) Shot over a two-day blowout in November, 1976 at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom, under the direction of Martin Scorsese and his stellar crew, the film sees The Band powering through their impressive catalog and holding court with stars such as Paul Butterfield, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Ronnie Hawkins, Dr. John, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Ringo Starr, Muddy Waters, Ronnie Wood and Neil Young. Regal, righteous, and filled with indomitable spirit.

3. U2 3D (2008)

Experiments of this sort - let's create the first live-action film shot, produced, and screened totally with digital 3-D technology - have a funny way of turning into disasters. But directors Catherine Owens and Mark Pellington have trained their cameras on the world's most compelling live band, U2, who, during their 2006 Vertigo Tour, were in splendid, thunderous form. Let's face it: People wearing 3-D glasses will always look like idiots. Thanks to this movie, they won't feel like idiots.

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