‘Power to the People: John & Yoko Live in NYC’ Review: Sizzling Concert Film of John Lennon’s Rockin’ 1972 Madison Square Garden Shows

In his Army jacket and lollipop-blue round sunglasses, with shaggy long sideburns, Lennon gives off a fascinating air of self-involved indifference, which is expressed in the fact that he’s chewing gum for the entire concert. Maybe that was his way of calming his nerves, but the upshot was to give him a disaffected air that’s almost Lou Reed adjacent. He and Yoko and the band perform 15 songs, and in certain ones he’s doggedly sincere, yet he’s also got the Lennon cheek («Welcome to the rehearsal,» he warns the audience at the afternoon show), and also the Lennon detachment, that underlying vibe of «Who gives a fuck, really?»