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The Main Characters
Well, it’s a band so I’ll list the main players:
--Pete Townshend- Lead Guitar/Vocals
--John Entwistle – Bass/Vocals
--Roger Daltrey – Vocals/Harmonica/Tambourine
--Keith Moon –Drums/Vocals
--Kenny Jones – Drums (1979-1982)
The Setting
All over the country!
The Movie
The disc starts off with a short montage to the tune of Who Are You and brief snippets of an interview with Daltrey talking about the Who’s sound. They then show a montage of various live performances done to Magic Bus. We then get an old interview of Townshend talking about capturing on record the sound onstage rather than vice versa and talks about a new artist, Jimi Hendrix doing that. We go to our first performance, “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere,” from the Richmond Blues and Jazz Festival from August 6th, 1965. The video is grainy and the sound is pretty bad but that’s to be expected. This is still early on in the Who’s stage career and you can tell. Daltrey forgets the words, the vocal pitches are off but Keith Moon saves the whole thing with his insane drumming. He is just flailing about wildly yet still in time. It’s amazing to see. The performance overall is pretty substandard but Moon is impressive.
We get clips of the Who at the Marquee and Roger talks about how they couldn’t give free tickets away on their first ever show. Pete and John chime in on the Marquee and how they enjoyed it there. The next song is from March 2nd, 1967 and is So Sad About Us played at the Marquee Club. Same problems as before with the audio/visual but you can tell the Who were getting better at a band and were hinting at what greatness would come. They cut to various interviews and clipped performances talking about the power of their live performances and how Pete doesn’t trust TV to show the Who.
The Who’s next big gig was at the Monterey Pop Festival which really got the Who noticed. Pete talks about playing with Jimi all the time and Pete talks about Pete, Jimi, Brian Jones, George Harrison and Clapton jamming underneath the stage at Monterey. This is from June 18th, 1967 at Monterey and the Who are playing, “A Quick One While He’s Away.” Not a bad performance, not as good as the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus one but good nonetheless.
Next, some guy says how the Who were a very unmanageable band. They go to a performance of Happy Jack from Dec 14th 1969 at the London Coliseum. This was in the midst of their Tommy touring so they were pretty good by this point and this is no exception. This is a perfect example of the lead drumming of Keith Moon.
The three members talk about their stage antics and Pete saying how he and Keith won the crowd’s attention more often than Roger and John. John just didn’t try and Roger just lost. We go to a frequent opening number for the Who during this stage in their careers, Heaven and Hell from the Tanglewood Music Shed show on July 7th, 1970. They finish that and head right into “I Can’t Explain.” After that, Pete talks about being on that card with Jethro Tull, before they Aqualung album made them superstars and then launch into, “Water” a new song at the time that wasn’t released until much later on. The video is your average fancam type of deal but the sound is great and the Who really were locked in at this time and Water is an amazing performance.
The Who now talk about their historic Isle of Wight, 1970 performance that has since been issued on CD. It was a great show from August 19th, 1970 and we see the Who do Young Man Blues and I Don’t Even Know Myself. Both are awesome renditions of the song and must-hears.
Roger and Pete then start talking about their style and we go to a performance of My Generation from Amsterdam, Holland roundabout August 1972. Really a good version actually. The Who then talk about when Keith Moon passed out at the Cow Palace during a show and having to replace him with a member of the audience. The next set of songs is from what is regarded as one of the Who’s best shows ever at the Charlton Football Club in 1974. Pete says he doesn’t remember any of it because he was, “extremely pissed at that time.” Daltrey couldn’t remember anything of it either. The songs they play are: “Substitute,” “Drowned,” “Bell Boy,” and “My Generation Blues.” Awesome. Words really can’t describe it.
Pete and John talk about playing Magic Bus, Pete loved it, John hated it because he was stuck on A the whole time. Pete talks about how he hates playing Dreaming From the Waist but Sister Disco even more because Roger would come over in some sort of Everly Brothers type of bonding thing, which Pete hated. Hilarious stuff there. They show the Who playing Dreaming from the Waist from Dec 9th, 1975 from Cleveland. It’s in black and white just to let you know. I always liked this song only because Entwistle would go crazy on bass. This performance is pretty swank actually as Entwistle and Moon go crazy in their playing making it awesome.
The Who start talking about Moon’s untimely death. The disc starts taking a serious downturn here as the mild mannered Kenny Jones replaces Moon’s explosiveness. They show rehearsals with the Who and Kenny Jones and John “Rabbit” Brunswick where they play Sister Disco and Who Are You. Sister Disco is actually pretty good but Who Are You isn’t as pretty.
Pete talks about the Who’s shows being broken into three parts. The hardcore fans wanting the older, obscure stuff, the record companies wanted the newer stuff and the hits for the people who listened to the radio. The next set of songs come from a Who show on Dec 8th 1979 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago. They play 5:15, My Wife, Music Must Change and Pinball Wizard. 5:15 isn’t too bad, My Wife is pretty brutal and Music Must Change is pretty good. The Who then break into an average performance of Pinball Wizard.
Pete and John talk about their ability to play with each other really well. They cut to Behind Blue Eyes from Dec 28th, 1979 played at the Concert for Kampuchea. Pretty watered down version but hey, that’s what happens sometimes. Pete then talks about their Shea Stadium gig and how he didn’t want to be there. It was too big. Of course, we cut to a show there from Oct 13th, 1982 with the Who playing Love Reign O’er Me. I agree with Pete, the Who shouldn’t have played there. Not good at all.
The next and final batch of songs is from The Who’s shows at Giant Stadium on June 29th, 30th, and July 3rd, 1989. They are: Boris The Spider, I Can See for Miles and See Me, Feel Me. Really weird period for the Who as they were doing a reunion tour with what seems like a full ensemble of musicians and Pete used nothing but an acoustic guitar due to his hearing problem. Not really a memorable way to end the disc but I guess you got to end somewhere. Boris the Spider had the worst arrangement ever. I Can See For Miles is just alright but it didn’t really sit well with me. See Me Feel Me is at least energetic. We get some last interview clips from Townshend to end the disc.
Movie Review
I’ve always been a huge Who fan. I own all their CD’s, music books, and I’ve even been able to see them in concert a few times. Of course, since I’m 22 years old, I missed all the glory years of 69-71 when the Who were easily the best rock and roll band in the world. Luckily, a compilation like this came out and it features some of the Who’s best ranging from 1965 to 1989. It’s a little over 2 and a half hours long and is nothing but live Who performances.
Given what they could have done, it’s almost sad to watch it as the whole DVD takes a huge nosedive after Moon is no longer with them, as the Who’s career did too. But for the first half, it’s amazing to watch Moon flail away and he truly cements his place as the greatest rock drummer ever. John Entwistle is amazing throughout and shows why he’s my favorite bassist and Townshend is his usual self. The singing of Daltrey is really impressive and precise and you can actually see him get better as the Who progressed in their career. But still, only the first half is really remarkable. The second half is pretty passe.
DVD Features
A) Extras
None, absolutely nothing
B) Audio/Visual
The audio and visual varied throughout the program mainly because of the different years recorded but the later stuff is generally pretty well recorded and the sound is pretty consistently great throughout
C) Liner Notes
The disc made mention of an 8-page booklet which I apparently didn’t get.
D) Easter Eggs
None
Overall Review
Overall, I’d call the DVD a disappointment. It’s always nice to see some old Who footage but there’s way too much from the post-Moon years. Ideally, it would have been a two and a half hour disc of nothing but shows from 69-71 and featured some of the better performances of staples like Baba O’Reilly, Won’t Get Fooled Again as well as Tommy, hell, all of it. The video and audio vary based on shows but there’s not much you can do about that. The sound for the most part is a lot better than the video that I’m sure most fans would prefer. They seemed to have really cheaped out on this one. There’s really no theme between the songs, the box is sort of average, there’s no extras, not even bios of the four members!! I mean I can see why they have so much stuff from 79 onwards, it’s much more readily available than earlier things but I bet most Who fans would rather have earlier stuff, even if it wasn’t the best of quality. I can’t really recommend it in good conscious. The Who were an explosive live band with Moon and sort of play by numbers afterwards. Only half of the disc has Moon playing so if you bought it you’d only want to re-watch the first half anyway.
Overall Rating
5.0/10
10.0 Perfect
9.0-9.5 Near Perfect, Highly Recommended
8.0-8.5 Really good disc, Recommended
7.0-7.5 Good DVD, Mildly recommended
6.0-6.5 Above Average DVD. Mildest of mild recommendations
5.0-5.5 Decent all around disc, but catch it on TV
4.0-4.5 Great Movie but horrible DVD
3.0-3.5 Horrible movie but great DVD
2.0-2.5 There’s at least some merit to this DVD, but not much.
1.0-1.5 Horrible DVD, don’t even bother
0.0-0.5 Worst DVD ever
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