Bob Marley's last concert: the Stanley Theatre, Pittsburgh, September 23, 1980

About the artist

Bob Marley was born on February 6, 1945, in Nine Miles, in the parish of St. Ann, Jamaica. In 1963 he formed the Wailing Wailers with Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh; the group signed with Island Records in 1972 and delivered Catch a Fire the following year^[1]. Eric Clapton's cover of "I Shot the Sheriff" reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1974, the year Bunny and Tosh left, and Natty Dread (1974) was the first album credited to Bob Marley and the Wailers^[1]. A live "No Woman, No Cry," recorded at the Lyceum in London, made the UK Top 40, and Exodus (1977) spent 56 consecutive weeks on the UK chart^[1]. At the One Love Peace Concert in Kingston on April 22, 1978, he brought the leaders of Jamaica's two rival parties together on stage to shake hands^[2][1]. In April 1979 he toured Japan, Australia and New Zealand^[1].

Why this was the last show

In April 1980, Bob Marley and the Wailers played at Zimbabwe's official independence ceremony^[1]. On June 10 they released Uprising^[3], which turned out to be the last studio album issued in Marley's lifetime; its single "Could You Be Loved" reached No. 5 in the UK^[4].

The Uprising Tour, which would be Marley's last^[5], ran through Europe from May 30 to July 13^[3], 34 dates in all^[6]. According to Marley's official website, the band played to 110,000 people in Milan, the biggest audience of their career^[1].

The American leg opened in Boston on September 16 and included two consecutive sold-out nights at Madison Square Garden in New York^[1]. The band played five U.S. dates that September^[3], and Pittsburgh, on the 23rd, was the last of them^[1]. Allan "Skill" Cole, Marley's manager and confidant, told the Jamaica Observer in 2021 that it was he who called off the rest of the tour after Pittsburgh^[7]. Judy Mowatt of the I Threes remembers the tour manager telling the musicians that the remaining dates were canceled; she had expected to be back on stage with Marley for the next leg^[8].

Marley died on May 11, 1981, at the age of 36^[2]. Nothing had marked the Pittsburgh show as a farewell, but his official website now records that night as the final set of his career^[1].

What is known about the day

The Stanley Theatre opened in downtown Pittsburgh on February 27, 1928, as a movie palace^[9]. With about 3,800 seats it was the largest movie theater in western Pennsylvania and the city's main first-run house for Warner Bros. pictures; over the years it also hosted concerts by the Grateful Dead, Frank Zappa and Prince, among others^[10]. DiCesare Engler Productions bought the theater in 1977 and presented rock shows there until 1982^[9].

Marley's show, on a Tuesday night, was sold out^[11][12], and Cole remembers a full house, palpable excitement in the room and a strong performance from Marley^[7]. According to the album credits, Marley was backed by seven Wailers (Aston "Family Man" Barrett on bass, Carlton Barrett on drums, Tyrone Downie and Earl "Wya" Lindo on keyboards, Junior Marvin and Al Anderson on guitar, and Alvin "Seeco" Patterson on percussion) and by the I Threes, Rita Marley, Marcia Griffiths and Mowatt, on backing vocals^[13][14].

The setlist preserved on the official album opens with a short track titled "Greetings," then runs through 19 songs, starting with "Natural Mystic" and taking in "Positive Vibration," "No Woman, No Cry," "Jamming" and "Exodus"^[15]. Five of them came from the new album, Uprising: "Zion Train," "Redemption Song," "Coming in from the Cold," "Could You Be Loved" and "Work"^[4]. Relix's reviewer noted how "Coming in from the Cold" led straight into "Could You Be Loved"^[16].

David Meerman Scott, then a student at Kenyon College, was in the audience. He recalls that Marley danced through the roughly 90-minute show, except during a solo acoustic "Redemption Song," and that the band came back for three encores^[11]. Mowatt also remembers three encores^[8]. Rich Engler, who promoted the show, has called the concert "magical" and named "Redemption Song" as the performance he remembered most^[12].

The last song of the night, and the last Bob Marley ever performed in concert, was "Get Up, Stand Up," from the 1973 album Burnin'^[16][17][18].

What the show left behind

The show had often been bootlegged^[13]. In December 2010, Marley's label Tuff Gong announced an official release^[19], and Live Forever: The Stanley Theatre, Pittsburgh, PA, September 23, 1980 followed in February 2011 as a two-CD set, alongside a super deluxe edition that added three LPs^[20]. A Japanese edition came out that April^[5], and the album can also be streamed through links on Marley's official website^[15]. Reviewing the album for Relix, Glenn BurnSilver set it against Babylon by Bus, whose live set leaned on Marley's early songs, and found in the Pittsburgh show a fuller picture of his later songwriting^[16]. AllMusic's David Jeffries noted tape hiss and maxed-out levels in the source recording, but singled out "Natural Mystic," "Jamming," an R&B-tinged "No Woman, No Cry" and an "Exodus" that gathers speed as it goes^[13].

For the 30th anniversary in 2010, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that the night would be remembered with a tribute^[21]. Scott's photographs from the show were made available to the producers of the 2012 documentary Marley^[11]. The same year, U.S. public radio offered an hour-long special, Bob Marley - Live Forever, built on music from the concert and interviews with Rita Marley, Marcia Griffiths, the biographer Vivien Goldman and Doug Gebhard, a former journalist who had covered the 1980 show and later became a priest^[22]. On the 39th anniversary, in 2019, the Marley estate's official Twitter account marked the date^[11].

The final tour can also be seen on film: the June 13 concert in Dortmund, three days after Uprising came out, was shot for the German TV series Rockpalast and has been released as Uprising Live!^[3][6][23].

The Stanley Theatre became the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust's first project. Restored at a cost of $43 million, it reopened as the Benedum Center for the Performing Arts on September 25, 1987^[9], and today seats about 2,800^[24]. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places^[9].

Bob Marley's last concert ended with "Get Up, Stand Up."