George Harrison’s The Concert for Bangladesh: Where to stream & all you need to know

George Harrison's Grammy-winning humanitarian project, The Concert for Bangladesh, is now available to stream globally for the first time in the last 53 years. It can be streamed for free on all major platforms, including Amazon Music, Apple Music, Deezer, Soundcloud, Spotify, Tidal, and YouTube.

The project was organized at the Madison Square Garden in New York, on August 1, 1971. The organizers of the double live concert were Sir Harrison and Indian Sitar legend, Ravi Shankar. The concert came on the head of the Bangladesh Liberation War-related genocide and the tragic 1970 Bhola cyclone.

It aimed at raising international awareness and securing relief funds for the refugees affected by the tragedies. The August 1 concerts were divided into an afternoon show at 2:30 p.m., and an evening show at 8:00 p.m. The shows raised over $243,418.50, which was handed over to UNICEF on August 12, 1971, for administering the aid.

Sir George Harrison's project set the precedent for music serving a higher cause and is now available globally when Bangladesh faces a similar humanitarian crisis. The Concert for Bangladesh once again draws global attention to Bangladesh which is currently facing the aftermath of an economic crisis, civil unrest, and genocides.

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A look at George Harrison's The Concert for Bangladesh

The Concert for Bangladesh pioneered the era of large-scale benefit shows based around music. It was one of the most successful live shows in the 1900s and featured a star-studded lineup. Apart from Sir George Harrison, the Madison Square Garden concert also featured Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Eric Clapton, and Leon Russell.

Ravi Shankar opened both the afternoon and evening shows for the concert with a performance of Indian classical music. Joining Shankar for the performance were sarod player Ali Akbar Khan, tambura player Kamala Chakravarty, and tabla player Alla Rakha.

According to The Beatles' Instagram page, Sir George Harrison praised the joint efforts of the musicians performing at The Concert for Bangladesh, as he commented:

“The musicians were great. I mean they completely put down their own egos to play together and to do something because the whole vibe of that concert was that it was something bigger than the lot of us.”

The musicians banded together at the event as they performed soulful tracks like Bangla Dhun, Wah-Wah, Something, Bangla Desh, My Sweet Lord, and more. All performances were recorded and made available to the public as a triple Long Play (LP) box set.

The first-week sales of the copies reportedly surpassed the 250,000 units mark. As of this writing, over one million copies have been sold across the globe. All proceeds from the sale and streams of the project are directed towards UNICEF's relief and aid measures through the 'George Harrison Fund for UNICEF.'

The poster for George Harrison's The Concert for Bangladesh (Image via georgeharrison.com)

The full tracklist for The Concert for Bangladesh includes:

• Introduction
• Bangla Dhun
• Wah-Wah
• My Sweet Lord
• Awaiting On You All
• That's the Way God Planned It
• It Don't Come Easy
• Beware of Darkness
• While My Guitar Gently Weeps
• Jumpin' Jack Flash / Young Blood
• Here Comes the Sun
• A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
• It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry
• Blowin' In the Wind
• Mr. Tambourine Man
• Just Like a Woman
• Something
• Bangla Desh
• Love Minus Zero / No Limit
• Bangla Desh (studio version)

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The Concert for Bangladesh was also released as a film in March 1972. Directed by Saul Swimmer, the film is a documentation of the two star-studded concerts organized by Ravi Shankar and George Harrison. Currently, the film is unavailable to stream, but fans can get its DVD copies from major sellers, including Amazon.