| Rockshow | |
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Poster of Rockshow |
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| Produced by | Bob Mercer |
| Starring | Paul McCartney Linda McCartney Denny Laine Jimmy McCulloch Joe English |
| Music by | Wings |
| Cinematography | Jack Priestley |
| Editing by | Robin Clarke |
| Distributed by | Miramax |
| Release date(s) | November 1980 |
| Running time | 102 min. (edited version) 125 min. (unedited version) |
| Language | English |
Rockshow is a 1980 concert film by Wings, filmed during their 1976 North American tour. It features 30 songs from four concerts of the tour: New York, May 25 (four songs); Seattle, Washington, June 10 (five songs); Los Angeles, California, June 22 (15 songs); and Los Angeles, California, June 23 (six songs), although both the cover of the home video release and McCartney himself in his McCartney Years DVD intro acknowledge only the Seattle concert. This was part of the epic Wings Over the World Tour that also spawned the triple live album Wings over America. Despite widespread consensus among McCartney-fans that Rockshow ranks among his best work as a solo-artist, McCartney remains reluctant to make the entire film available to the general public on DVD. Only seven songs have been released as part of the McCartney Years DVD. One of which, a cover-version of The Beatles' "Lady Madonna," was originally left out of the Rockshow home video release.
The music for what was to become Rockshow (and Wings Over The World) was produced by Chris Thomas and engineered by Phil McDonald during 1979. However, the processing of the Rockshow overdubs was obviously completed by the airdate of Wings Over The World, as these same performances were featured in both productions. Not all of the songs made it to the film in their entirety ("Medicine Jar" and "Letting Go" have been edited), and the song introductions did not always match the performance which followed. For example, several of the introductions came from the Seattle performance while the actual song was taken from a Los Angeles show: "Magneto & Titanium Man", "Spirits of Ancient Egypt", "Lady Madonna", "Let 'Em In", and "Soily". The introduction of the horn section was a composite as well with portions coming from Seattle and the final Los Angeles show. The film would not premiere until November 26, 1980 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York; Paul did not attend, as he was in the studio at the time. They did attend the London Premiere at the Dominion Theatre in Piccadilly Circus on April 8, 1981. The film was released on video in October 1981, with a laserdisc and CED release in 1982.
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