Ten Classic Bob Marley Performances

As the enduring icon of Reggae music all over the world, Bob Marley’s legendary resume as an artist transcends the limits of general stardom and fame. For most people, Marley’s music was a vehicle to the spiritual, and his intense passion when performing was an invitation to a musical and human experience that only very few artists have managed to replicate on some level since.

Today, we take a look back at 10 of the legend’s classic performances, from his early days with The Wailers to performing at Madison Square Garden, and the stories behind them, and how his unique and melodious tone, often laced with politically charged lyrics and pro-pan-Africanist themes, paved the way for, among many things, his top-15 placing on Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

1. Smile Jamaica

During the tumultuous 1970s, a period in Jamaica’s history marked by extreme and widespread political turmoil, Marley ignored his then rather recent assassination attempt to deliver one of the most moving performances of his career.

Just two days before that moment, in 1976, Marley and his relatively new band – a backup, as the original Wailers had been disbanded two years prior – were at his 56 Hope Road, Kingston, home studio – Tuff Gong. According to an eyewitness – a keyboardist by the name of Tyrone Downie, who shared his account with So Much Things To Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley by Reggae historian and archivist, Roger Steffens: “We were rehearsing ‘I Shot The Sheriff’ at the moment when the gunmen broke in.” On December 3, 1976, one of seven men armed with guns who invaded the property, cracked open the door to the kitchen, where Marley went after leaving the studio, and opened fire. Following the brazen attack, Rita, his wife, was shot in the head, he was shot in the arm, his manager, Don Taylor, was shot multiple times in the stomach, and another colleague was also seriously injured during the home invasion. Fortunately, they all survived.

On December 5, 1976, Bob walked out on stage at the National Heroes Park and performed in front of over 80,000 people. He is famously quoted as saying of that moment, “The people who are trying to make this world worse are not taking the day off. Why should I?” For many, the Smile Jamaica concert was an incredibly significant moment in Marley’s and Jamaica’s history.

2. One Love Peace Concert 

Following the Smile Jamaica concert, Marley took to London with his band on a self-imposed exile for a year, and wrote, recorded and released Exodus – an album hailed by Rolling Stone as the most important album of the century. During the same period, as Jamaica slowly crawled its way out of the political civil war that characterized the 70s, it needed all the help it could get. Marley was visited in England by three of Jamaica’s biggest gang leaders at the time – Claudius ‘Claudie’ Massop, Tony Welsh and Earl ‘Tek Life’ Wadley, who convinced him that his being back home would go a long way in alleviating gang violence in his home country.

Bob later returned home for the star-packed One Love Peace Concert, which featured Peter Tosh (an original member of The Wailers), Dennis Brown, Zap Pow (which had Beres Hammond) and Jacob Miller, among others. It was at that concert, while performing a spirited version of ‘Jamming’, that Marley spontaneously invited the heads of Jamaica’s two major political parties – Edward Seaga (JLP) and Michael Manley (PNP) – on stage in front of over 32,000 attendees. In a moment that has since been immortalized in photo, Marley encouraged them to shake hands. Then, with his hands at the base of theirs, he lifted their hands aloft to the sky. Marley was later recognized for that moment by the United Nations, receiving the Peace Medal of the Third World.

3. Amandla Festival of Unity 

The Amandla Festival of Unity was a significant one for Bob, as it coincided with what was, at that time for him, almost a singular focus on activism, specifically the kind geared at liberating Africans and people of African-descent. Coming in the late 1970s, the festival found its genesis while Bob was busy working on one of his most grounding and impactful albums of all time – Survival, which featured powerful songs like ‘Africa Unite’, ‘So Much Trouble in the World’ and ‘Zimbabwe’.

On July 21, 1979, the Harvard Stadium in Boston, Massachusetts, hosted Bob Marley and the Wailers for the Amandla Festival of Unity. It was geared towards raising funds and support to fight against Apartheid in South Africa, as well as tackling racism in the city of Boston.

Though he signed on to perform at the festival just three weeks before it started, he was adamant about doing the show for free, only requiring that the transportation costs for him and the band be covered. Following the festival, many Bostonians regarded the event as a life-changing one for them. In the end, it raised thousands of dollars towards the goals Bob had laid out for it.

4. Zimbabwe Independence Celebrations

In perhaps one of the most moving and powerful examples of who Bob Marley was, the Zimbabwe Independence Festival proved to be a defining moment in his expansive legacy. Known then as Southern Rhodesia, and having already dedicated a song to their efforts for freedom, Zimbabwe invited Bob Marley to celebrate their newfound sovereignty with them at the Independence celebrations on April 18, 1980.

Interestingly, according to reports, having fought for and gotten their freedom, Zimbabwe was not in a position to pay for having Bob at the celebrations, so he reportedly chartered a jet and covered all his expenses, just so he could be there.

There, inside the Rufaro stadium in Salisbury, in front of 40,000 people, Bob Marley was introduced, signaling the birth of a nation. While the concert went on, there were 2 million more people outside of the stadium wanting to see the show. A riot soon broke out and chaos enveloped the atmosphere, with armed guards and security personnel releasing tear gas into the vast crowd. As the gas reached inside the stadium and onto the stage, everyone began scattering. Everyone but Bob. As tear gas covered the stage, Bob was the lone figure on the stage – still singing, eyes burning from the tear gas. His bandmates, who had long left the stage, returned after they saw that he wouldn’t leave. People eventually made their way back into the show. The following evening, in an attempt to help quell the riots, Bob returned to host another free concert, this time to over 100,000 Zimbabweans.

5. Bob Marley and The Wailers at Madison Square Garden (1980)

Playing on the same bill as the Lionel Richie-led Commodores and fresh off the heels of the release of his politically charged Survival album, Bob’s first time playing at Madison Square Garden was an incredibly pivotal point in his career.

At the time, the North American audience had not been too familiar with Bob’s music, and with the political weight of his Survival album behind him, juxtaposed with the commercially successful Commodores – he had one shot at making a lasting impression that transcended politics. And Marley nailed it.

According to one account, “I remember just sitting back and listening when Marley was on, pure music. It changed to a more commercial feeling when the Commodores played. It was like the stage transformed from a mellow living room to a glitzy stage set — strange transition.”

Robert Palmer of the New York Times, in his review of Marley’s performance, noted, “The Jamaicans were dressed in street clothes, used no props, avoided choreography, and gave a spellbinding performance of smoldering minor-key dance music that was heavily weighted with political and religious messages. Mr. Marley’s pre-encore set seemed loosely organized. In fact, it was exactly 55 minutes long and brilliantly paced, from its apparently haphazard beginning right up to its powerful ending minutes, which found the Wailers creating a mesmerizing atmosphere with their crisp interlocking polyrhythms. After this show of strength, and Mr. Marley’s intense singing and electric stage presence, the Commodores were a letdown.”

6. Bob Marley and The Wailers Live at Rainbow (1977)

Exodus, his 10th studio album released on June 3, 1977, saw Marley embarking on an intensive tour schedule, from the Pavillon de Paris, to Belgium, Sweden, Netherlands, West Germany, and Denmark, before finally settling down for a groundbreaking four-nights show at the Rainbow Theatre, Finsbury Park, North London. His rendition of ‘Natural Mystic’ is still one of the most legendary live performances the 2,800-capacity venue has ever seen. That show was released as a live album.

7. Bob Marley and the Wailers at the Manhattan Center, New York, NY (1975)

The Manhattan Center in New York, today known as the Hammerstein Ballroom, hosted Bob Marley and the new-look Wailers in 1975 for a performance that cemented Marley’s reputation as a spellbinding as a performer. The performance came early on in the Natty Dread tour that year, and featured a notable freestyle version of ‘Get Up, Stand Up’ – a decision that significantly and positively impacted Marley’s legacy early on in that market.

8. The Wailers (1973)

Peter Tosh, Joe Higgs (Bunny Wailer didn’t make that trip to the U.S.) and Bob Marley, 10 years after The Wailers was formed, embarked on their first US tour in 1973, shortly after the release of Catch a Fire. The band had been opening for one of the pioneers of funk, soul and rock music, Sly and the Family Stone.

Though initially booked for 17 shows, just four shows in, hey were fired, with some reports claiming they had been outperforming the home band, and others claiming they simply didn’t connect with the audience. Whichever was the case, The Wailers ended up in California after being stranded in Vegas for a while. It was there that they filmed and released their first U.S. single, Duppy Conqueror, under Shelter Records, which they performed on Capitol Session 73. The performance made significant headway into carving out a niche for the then not well-known Reggae music. It was also there that Bob Marley wooed his American audience.

9. Bob Marley and The Wailers at the Uptown Theater, Chicago, Illinois

On November 13, 1979, while on his ‘Survival’ tour, Marley stopped by the Uptown Theater in Chicago to build on what was an impressive feat for Reggae just a few weeks earlier – him being the first Reggae artist to perform at the famed Apollo Theater, on a week-long stint no less. While at Uptown Theater, the only known recording of Marley performing ‘Survival’ was recorded and can still be viewed today.

10. Bob Marley and The Wailers at Westfalenhalle, Dortmund, Germany

1980 proved to be Marley’s final year of touring. Yet, even without definitively knowing that, the support he received throughout Europe was huge, though incomparable to the over 120,000-plus crowd he drew in Milan, Italy. That final year of touring saw Marley stop on his continent-wide ‘Uprising’ tour at Westfalen, enabling those who had never seen him live before to do so. His performance in Westfalen was recorded for television, and, especially in retrospect, may be one of his most hauntingly beautiful performances he’s given, even as his illness loomed.

It is no fluke why year after year, Bob Marley’s music still dominates the Reggae charts across the world. His otherworldly dedication to his purpose, and his inimitable ability to transmute that purpose into soul-touching music, coupled with a spellbinding aura that oozed whenever he was on stage, make Marley a truly one-of-a-kind artist that we are unlikely to see ever again in our lifetimes.