VIA PRESS RELEASE | Following its successful launch at last month’s South by Southwest (SXSW) Film & Music Festivals, the concert film Thank You, Friends: Big Star’s Third Live … and More was the recipient of much critical acclaim. The title will be available in stores April 21, 2017 as a 2-CD/DVD or Blu-Ray combo pack, as well as a stand-alone 2-CD album. Liner notes by GRAMMY® Award-winning writer Anthony DeCurtis and Chris Stamey (from the dB’s, and a founding member of the Big Star Third ensemble) will round out the package. The film will also be available via Digital HD and VOD on April 25th.
Cited by Rolling Stone as “One of 20 Must-See Films” at SXSW, two events on opposite ends of the country will kick off the release of the CD/DVD and Blu-Ray packages. On April 20, Los Angeles’ GRAMMY® Museum will host a film screening followed by a Q&A with film director Benno Nelson (of production company Yes Equals Yes) and Big Star’s Third ensemble members Dan Wilson, Skylar Gudasz and musical director Stamey. GRAMMY® Foundation Vice President Scott Goldman will moderate.
On April 21 — street date — a panel and performance will follow a screening of the film at Durham, N.C.’s Caroline Theatre. The Q&A and performance will feature Big Star’s drummer and sole surviving member Jody Stephens, along with the ensemble’s several North Carolina performers: Gudasz, Django Haskins, Jeff Crawford, and Stamey. The moderator will be WUNC-FM’s Eric Hodge.
Big Star’s devastatingly beautiful third album has long been revered by artists and critics as one of the most influential records ever produced. Rolling Stone included it in its listing of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Written and recorded when the legendary ’70s band was primarily a studio project consisting of guitarist/singer-songwriter Alex Chilton and Stephens, Third (or Sister Lovers, as it was alternatively known) had never been performed in public with the original string and wind arrangements.
That changed in 2010, following Chilton’s untimely death just two days ahead of a much-anticipated Big Star performance at SXSW. That December, famous friends and fans assembled from far and wide to play a fully orchestrated Chapel Hill, N.C. gig in Chilton’s honor. From there, the core players (including Stephens, Mike Mills (R.E.M.), Mitch Easter (Let’s Active), and Stamey, plus the Posies’ Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer) took the show on the road internationally, enlisting guest stars and orchestras in each city, and performing not only songs from Third, but also material from Big Star’s first two albums, #1 Record and Radio City.
That core ensemble, along with a star-studded cast of guest artists, assembled in April 2016 at Glendale, Calif.’s Alex Theatre for the epic concert seen in Thank You, Friends. The film includes performances by a who’s who of indie rock, including Jeff Tweedy and Pat Sansone of Wilco, Ira Kaplan (Yo La Tengo), Robyn Hitchcock, Dan Wilson (Semisonic), Benmont Tench, Kronos Quartet, Jessica Pratt, Brett Harris, Haskins and Gudasz as well as a full chamber orchestra conducted by Carl Marsh, who wrote the original orchestrations for Third/Sister Lovers.
David Menconi in the Raleigh News & Observer wrote of the film, “Listening to Big Star’s records 40 years on, it’s still unfathomable how they weren’t all over the radio in their day. Thank You, Friends underscores that with great renditions of ‘Thirteen,’ ‘September Gurls’ and other shoulda-been hits by an all-star band.” Online Music Videos called it a “triumphant film.” Witnessing the SXSW performance of Third on the night following the screening, the Lincoln Journal-Star noted: “It was a lovely orchestral rock show … a night I’ll remember as I’m sure I’ll never get to hear those songs played that way live again.”
