Bob Marley at the Madison Square Garden '80

You will hear me talk about Bob Marley's shows at the MSG in 1980 a lot. And this is because I think these shows hold quite some relevance within the context of the Uprising tour.

When talking about the Uprising tour -Bob's last tour- one cannot separate the music from Bob's illness. During this tour, Bob's deteriorating health is more apparent with each show. This is not to mean that the shows have a lower quality because of this. In fact, the Uprising tour -and album- are by far my favorite work by Bob Marley and the Wailers. The music reaches a stage of maturity that is amazing. And it is quite different from the albums that were published in the previous years.

During the European leg of the Uprising tour, Bob's health was declining rapidly. Understanding this evolution is also understanding an important part of his work -not lastly because of the sacrifice he is offering by performing despite his condition. This sacrifice can be seen as martyrdom, as an act performed for the sake of him delivering his message. It gives a strong background to the values that Bob was singing about: he means it, because he offered his own life for his cause. "I like suffering, if it is for the right cause", he once said in an interview. In this regard, Bob Marley presents himself as a savior and a sufferer, not too different from Jesus Christ.

To understand more about Bob's health decline and how he dealt with it during 1980 is as important as understanding his final months in Germany at Issels clinic. Why? Because his decision to go ahead with the tour and try to ignore his condition is materialized in those shows. Look at the Dortmund video, for instance, to see him struggling with his own pain and keep on singing. The Uprising tour is his personal sacrifice, and a sacrifice that must not have been without a conflict: While he was under strong pain and disconfort, he had to deal with new plans and an exciting future. For instance, only shortly before collapsing in Central Park, he said in an interview that they would be touring until December that year. Plans were set for a tour with Inner Circle in 1981. Quite a contrast, if you think about it.

What fascinates me about the Madison Square Garden '80 shows is the fact that they are such a strong turning point. Both, musically and personally for Bob, these shows mark the end of the Uprising tour.

It has been proposed by Freud and others that an illness often has an unconscious background. In other words, it is a way through which unconscious feelings, otherwise repressed, return in the form of a physical symptom. Even if the unconscious is not the cause for an illness, the physical symptoms quite often have an unconscious background.

Having said that, why would Bob Marley collapse after the second night at the Madison Square Garden? And I don't mean why he would collapse, because that is clear. I mean why exactly then? After months touring Europe in exhaustingly tight schedules, why would this happen until September?

I want to propose that not only the physical aspect played a role in this. Contrary to denying the importance of having a brain tumor, I want to add another aspect to the equation: Bob's desire to go on until (at least) this point. Let's take a look at some clues about this.

It is well known that when Bob was singing, he would seem to improvise lyrics that had an actual "private" meaning. One famous example happens during "Jamming" in the "One love" peace concert in 1978. After a guitar solo, Bob shouts "watch what you're doing", words that were actually addressing the guitar player who had just hit the wrong note.

Now, in the second night at the MSG in 1980, at the end of "Crazy baldheads", Bob sings (almost whispering)

Don't feel it

Gotta feel good now

These sad words give us some hardly gained insight into what Bob was feeling at the time. It seems to me like he is resisting, during the whole European leg of the tour. Resisting through the first dates of the US leg of the tour. See the interview he gives together with Tyrone Downie the night of the Boston show, Bob seems devastated. But he resists, until the MSG shows are over. And then he collapses in Central Park.

The point I want to make is, that given his health condition this could have probably happened way before. The fact that it didn't demonstrates that these shows were very important for Bob, because he chose to give them.

Musically, these shows also mark a departure from the European leg of the tour. The electronic drums used in Jamming and Exodus were introduced in this show. The sound was getting more and more americanized. Also: they played "Forever loving Jah" during the first night at the MSG, a song never played during another show of tour (at least that we would know about ;-P ).

Did Bob know what was about to happen? Nobody will ever know. I think that he did not imagine the extend that it would have. Having survived an assassination attempt, and the operation of his melanoma in 1977, his illness was probably something he thought he would be able to survive.

The MSG shows are Bob's last Uprising tour shows and the Pittsburgh show is an epilogue. After the cancer diagnosis there was a reality that had to be faced with however means he had for that. Before that it was just the tour. Within the tour these shows have a great importance, shown by the fact that Bob gave those even in his critical condition. This has a great impact on the music and also in the significance that these shows have.