Live at the Isle of Wight Festival CD/DVD
Live at the Isle of Wight Festival CD/DVD
I find the Quadrophenia Live in London release from 2014 to be quite good. Starkey wasn't there as he was recovering from knee surgery but they recruited the drummer from Oleander, Scott Devours, for the shows and he was excellent. For the most part, this is a great live album/dvd.
Bill
She'll be standing on the bar soon
With a fish head and a harpoon
and a fake beard plastered on her brow.
There is of course a DVD from nearly twenty years earlier of them doing Quadrophenia with not only Zak Starkey but John Entwistle too. (Interesting that they hacked out Gary Glitter from the performance, I knew he did a Quadrophenia tour but actually didn't realise he was originally on this show.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_...drophenia_Live
I think there's an argument for the band to delete and start again. Just get out the original mixes with no bonus tracks if necessary. Some of the albums really don't benefit from them anyway IMHO, as their albums- certainly from Sell Out onwards- work best as stand-alone statements.
Last edited by JJ88; 07-17-2017 at 06:39 AM.
An awful lot of The 'Oo's best live material has never been released officially.
I'm just sayin...
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
I made a road trip with a friend to see The Who last night at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, NJ. I thought that it was a great night of live music. Of course, it was basically a greatest hits type show. The band sounded good. It was kind of loud, even with ear plugs. I did not enjoy the opening act called "The London Souls" that much. I would say that if they do a show near where you live, that it is worth seeing, even thought these guys are in their 70s!
Here was the set list:
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-w...-6be5a692.html
Library Jon
Just bumping an old thread as I've listened to a few old shows. I think this Philadelphia 1973 show is seen as the best of the Quadrophenia tour but I think the album just didn't work live at the time. There are a few occasions where it takes off such as 'Drowned' but little else improves on the studio versions. I can only put it down to the use of sound effect tapes (sometimes the timing is botched, see 'The Real Me'!) and Daltrey/Townshend explaining the storyline after pretty much every track; momentum-killing. For whatever reason there is no circulating recording of 'Love Reign O'er Me' from this show. And Moon's snare drum was very badly recorded, sounds like a tin can.
Been a while since I played the other multi-track from this tour, at the Capital Center I think, but the atmosphere seems quite nasty...Daltrey calling out a lot of audience pushing-and-shoving.
Any other thoughts on this tour, maybe from people who attended it? Perhaps I'm doing it a disservice.
Last edited by JJ88; 07-08-2019 at 09:18 AM.
My favourite top 3 for the moment would be:
1. Leeds '70 - official
2. Amsterdam '69 - boot
3. Young Vic '71 - Who's Next deluxe
Re: Quadrophenia '73 tour - I have the Capital Center (Largo) and I do like it. Intense performance.
Capital Center/Largo is indeed intense. I read a book (What You Need is in the Limo) about the big tours of '73 and Quadrophenia was fraught with problems. BUT, there were nights, particularly in the later dates, when there was less momentum killing talk from the stage and the band was in sync with the backing tapes. On those nights they killed.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Yeah, the original Quadrophenia tour was pretty much a disaster. One night Townshend heard from the audience, "Shurrup Townshend and let Entwistle play Boris the Spider!" And Entwistle complained after the show of the "machine" like playing to tapes - "We're the Who, not Pink Floyd!"
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
Leeds has not been officially released on CD in its correct order, which is unfortunate.
The Tommy section of Amsterdam is rough around the edges in places. But, as it's an early performance of the album, it has a historic importance and is an excellent quality recording of a full show.
I always forget that Young Vic show exists. Don't remember much about it!
Although the film itself isn't ideal, I think their best filmed performance is perhaps that 1969 London Coliseum show. The release of this was a bit of a botch, splitting 'A Quick One' and most of 'Tommy' from the main body of the performance. A restored version of this would be quite something, IMHO.
Perhaps that's what I like about it the most, I suppose. The lack of rawness, especially in case of the Who, detracts from my listening experience, which is why I rarely revisit studio recordings. Now I am looking forward to the monster Woodstock boxset, where the full Who's set should be one of the standout performances.
BTW, I could not stomach the recent official release of Fillmore East '68 tapes, where the rough edge of existing soundboard got totally neutered by the mastering engineers.
Live at Leeds is the ultimate The Who Live album. Warts and all... (I saw them live in Copenhagen the same year!)
Live At Hull, is good too, but maybe a bit redundant in comparison with Live at Leeds.
Are there any pre-Tommy live recordings with good sound?
Yes a lot of their professional recordings have similar set-lists, as there are so many from 1969/70 (Leeds, Hull, Isle Of Wight, Amsterdam, Tanglewood etc.). I don't really see the need for another release from then.
There is the 1971 San Francisco show from which a few songs have been released. The full show would be a good one to follow up the Fillmore East 1968 release.
A show I've listened to quite a few times over the years is the 1975 Toronto one, a fairly good audience recording. They were starting to veer to 'greatest hits' territory- only two songs later than 1971- but the set structure suits them better than the Quadrophenia tour. I believe some members saw this 1975/6 period as their peak as a live band.
Last edited by JJ88; 07-07-2019 at 11:24 AM.
As was discussed earlier in this thread, they were theoretically plugging The Who By Numbers on the '75 tour, yet the only new songs they played regularly on that tour were Dreaming From The Waist and, somewhat regrettably, Squeeze Box. They did Slip Kid and However Much I Booze a few times each, but I guess they decided at the time the songs "didn't work onstage". And Townshend apparently said years later some of the other songs on that album were "too depressing" to play a nightly basis.
I read that they were playing 'Imagine A Man' on their current tour.
I'm going to have to play Largo 1973 again, my memory is that it could be musically stronger overall but there's a lot of non-musical drama.
Steve F.
www.waysidemusic.com
www.cuneiformrecords.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
“Remember, if it doesn't say "Cuneiform," it's not prog!” - THE Jed Levin
Any time any one speaks to me about any musical project, the one absolute given is "it will not make big money". [tip of the hat to HK]
"Death to false 'support the scene' prog!"
please add 'imo' wherever you like, to avoid offending those easily offended.
There was a version which 'leaked' that was the full unvarnished Leeds concert...but with the static from Entwistle's bass guitar cable also unvarnished.
RE; Largo. I think the Quadrophenia section is stronger than Philadelphia, save a few things like 'Drowned'. Undoubtedly it's helped by the fact 'Love Reign O'er Me' is here. The surrounding parts of the show aren't so great IMHO. And again the drum sound is crap. Were these two King Biscuit shows fold-downs from quadrophonic? Might explain it.
There are a couple shows from the current tour on BigO. I recommend the Philadelphia show. The mix could be better (sometimes can't hear the band for the orchestra; sometimes can't hear the orchestra for the band), but it shows off the arrangements pretty well. What's also nice is that it's two old geezers admitting they are old geezers and not trying to be 20-somethings (like some bands I could name...).
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
I liked the acoustic tracks on Endless Wire- things like 'Man In A Purple Dress' and 'Tea And Theatre'- for that reason. They were different to what they'd done before, so not obviously trying to recapture former glories, whilst obviously reflecting the reality of the band as it stands now ('The Two' as some call them!). I remember Daltrey saying he was particularly pleased with those at the time.
'I Can See For Miles'...one of my favourite tracks by anyone, but always poor live IMHO. I don't know how often they ever played it with Moon, I don't think I've ever heard a live version of it with him. In post-Moon versions, Daltrey changes the vocal melody. And that Philadelphia show has him sounding more grizzled than ever.
Last edited by JJ88; 07-10-2019 at 05:43 AM.
I also love the Ottawa, 1969 show included, in part, in the most recent Tommy Deluxe (), because...
I was at the show. It was the first rock show my parents would allow me to attend...and what a great start. No, they didn't destroy their gear, but otherwise, combining earlier hits with most of Tommy, it couldn't have been better. I recall my ears ringing for three days....and loving it!
John Kelman
Senior Contributor, All About Jazz since 2004
Freelance writer/photographer
I watched that 1969 London Coliseum show again, they were really 'on' in this show. I had forgotten about the sound drop-out on 'Christmas' and 'The Acid Queen' though- ugh. Nevertheless I think this is easily the best live footage of the band, in terms of performance quality.
Weird that they buried this within the release of that really lousy 1977 Kilburn show. I hold my head in my hands in parts of that one out of sheer horror, yikes! And Townshend is in a filthy mood- 'well this wasn't fucking worth filming, Stein'.
I would say that this is the best live footage of the 'Oo:
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
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