This is one of the greatest transition-moments in 20th Century music. And some of the most driving rock music ever — one man with the voice, the power and the looks to move mountains. Big, heavy, sweating rock AND capital roll.

By this time, E was used to dealing with the empty spaces and endless waiting and run-throughs of film production (tentative book title: 29 Pictures); and his quiet patience when most other rock stars would’ve walked off and insulted the director in a fit of pique is inaresting — indeed with almost every take involved in the 50-minute special represented here (surprising to see how many takes and scenes actually go into it, all the dancing, the countless extras), you get every boring, waiting minute without a single tantrum (though I lost track of E saying 'mah boy, mah boy' to himself). Professional.

E still manages to pull off exponential, seismic shifts in energy — to unleash hoards of inner energy through his voice — the various takes of One Night, Lawdy Miss Clawdy, Trying to Get to You are just amazing; within the space of a second he racks up the highest, most absolute vocal intensity. It's almost voyeuristic to see a single performer put so much energy into a televisual performance; you look around to see if it's really possible, you laugh at the scale of it. The voice just becomes a big old tank panzering through the screen. He punches in chorus after driving chorus and it is insanely, inexplicably thrilling. It’s seismic TV, it’s bigger than the moon landing, it’s a one-man volcano of energy, and he makes it seem so damn effortless. It’s not possible, it’s unreal! No wonder he’s gotta stand up. How can this quietly buffoonish handsome man suddenly become a primal mountain of sexual energy? And despite all the waiting and expected attention during the solo numbers (E is no MC but affable enough), he always puts in an on-performance; the three unflagging takes of If I can Dream are all intense, committed. Never fluffed.

Greil Marcus was awarded essay duty for the sleeve notes, and despite his (elsewhere) diagnosis of a man singing for his life if not his musical career, here he comes across like he’s putting cheap mock-academic superlatives and hyperbolic spin on the matter (parallels are drawn with Connery as 007!?). Writing more and more like a mindless old fan rather than a deepener of the artistic truth. Sad, Greil. Very sad.