As 2011 marks thirty years since the death of Bob Marley, who died on 11 May 1981 in Miami, the recording of his last concert, given in Pittsburgh in September 1980, will soon be available.
Recorded at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on 23 September 1980, it is the Jamaican icon's last concert appearance. A few days earlier, very weakened, he had played two shows on the stage of Madison Square Garden in New York, opening for the Commodores. The next day, he collapsed during a jog in Central Park.
The Pittsburgh show should have been cancelled. But Marley took the stage against his doctors' advice. "I'm going to do it for my band and for everybody. The show is sold out. I'm going to do it," Bob reportedly said, according to Scott Mervis, a journalist at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. He went on stage one last time, closing the concert alone with Redemption Song.
Although the recording is not unreleased (the bootleg has been circulating under the counter for a long time), an official double album, entitled "Live Forever", will be available in early February 2011 on Universal.