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Thread: The Who - Shea Stadium 1982 DVD

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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    The Who - Shea Stadium 1982 DVD

    Anyone seen this and have an opinion? In the Bands your proud to have seen thread I mentioned the Who in 1982 (sort of tangentially), and it got me thinking when I saw them on this tour I was FAR away and couldn't see a lot. I actually enjoy the It's Hard album, and wouldn't mind seeing a DVD from this tour, so I searched and found there's this Shea Stadium release. If it's decent I might get a used copy or something. Might be fun to see Shea Stadium again, as opposed to Shitty Field.

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    I'll give heavy odds that when GuitarGeek sees this he'll have opinions. STRONG opinions.
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  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Jerjo View Post
    I'll give heavy odds that when GuitarGeek sees this he'll have opinions. STRONG opinions.
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    I've not actually seen the Shea Stadium show (apart from the one or two songs that are on the 30 Years Of Maximum R&B DVD), but I have seen the Toronto show that was released back in 1983 as The Who Rocks America: 1982 Farewell Tour. I believe the DVD reissue is titled something like Live From Toronto. I thought it was a decent performance, but I've always been bugged that they left out Behind Blue Eyes and Dr. Jimmy, even on the DVD. (shrug). Great versions of Dangerous, It's Hard, Eminence Front, Drowned, 5:15, and a few others.

    As for Shea Stadium, Townshend says on the 30 Years Of Maximum R&B DVD that he felt it was an "average" gig, it wasn't "particularly good or particularly bad" so it didn't really stand out in his memory, apart from the fact that he remembered riding in the limo to the first night of the run and thinking to himself, "We shouldn't be doing this" because it was "too big".

    I can remember watching a heavily edited version of the Toronto show, with several songs missing, on HBO at the time, and being really cheesed that Townshend plays this ugly gold Schecter Telecaster copy (apparently the prototype for what later became their Saturn model) instead of the cool looking black one he had been using for the preceding couple years (the blue ones he uses for the capo songs looks better, but still not as cool as the black ones). I also remember liking that fist pumping thing Townshend does during the intro to Won't Get Fooled Again, just before the vocal. That Toronto gig was kind of my indoctrination to The Who, as before that, I'd really only heard a few songs via MTV.

    And since that was actually the first version of Won't Get Fooled Again I ever heard, I always miss the coda that they stuck onto the song, apparently for that one tour only, stretching it out by another couple minutes, that doesn't appear on the studio version or, as far as I know, any other pre-1982 version.

    There's also at least a couple shows floating around on the bootleg market, apparently sourced from soundboard audio and video screen feeds. I've got Seattle and San Diego. Again, both decent shows, though being that they're not official, the audio mix is at times wonky, with Entwistle at times disappearing in the mix (Entwistle was famous for having his amps cranked onstage, so maybe that's got something to do with it). I've got a few audience tapes too, notably Chicago (where they played Cooks County for the only time) and Oakland (where Townshend smashes one of his guitars during Won't Get Fooled Again).

    The thing you have to remember with any live recording of The Who from the Kenney Jones era is, he's not Keith Moon. Well, duh, of course, but you can't compare anything from circa 79-82 to what had come before. Yeah, it kinda doesn't sound the same as it did with Moon, but I still think they sound good, for the most part. But you sorta have to think of it as being a different band, almost, one that just happens to have three guys who used to be in this other, apparently more famous, band, and whose material overlaps greatly with that earlier band.

    I get the impression that Townshend had reached a point where he didn't really want to be in a "rock band" anymore and most especially he didn't like being "Pete Townshend, gravity defying guitar god". And I suspect maybe, after a certain point, between Moon passing and the Cincinnati debacle, the rest of the band were maybe tired of the whole spectacle, too (also probably tired of arguing with each other). But so maybe sometimes they're a bit "going through the motions", but on that Toronto video and most of the other shows I've heard, I think they did the music justice.

  4. #4
    As for It's Hard, I still think that's a mostly really really good album. Maybe not on the same level as The Who By Numbers or The Who Sell Out, but most of the songs, especially Entwistle's, are pretty solid. Athena, Why Did I Fall For That, and maybe A Man Is A Man, I'd toss out, but the rest of the album is pretty solid.

    Apart from those two songs, the other thing I don't like is Townshend's anemic guitar tone on Eminence Front, which is weird, considering he sounds just fine on the other songs. I remember the video for that song, which showed the band playing it in tour rehearsals. I could never figure out why Townshend's guitar sounded so much better in the version that was in the video, until I realized that the version in the video was an actual live performance of the song, not them miming to the studio version. I also remember both Townshend and Daltrey playing black Schecters, but apparently by the time the tour actually started, Daltrey had started using what appears to be an old Fender Esquire (and for the record, he played guitar on that tour on It's Hard, Eminence Front and Love Is Not For Keeping). If I'm not mistaken, before the '82 tour Daltrey hadn't played guitar with the band since the Detours days.
    Last edited by GuitarGeek; 04-19-2018 at 10:31 AM.

  5. #5
    I'll go out on a limb and say that I think It's Hard is a better album than By Numbers. Not up there with stone classics like Quadrophenia and The Who Sell Out, but a damn good album.
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  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Sturgeon's Lawyer View Post
    I'll go out on a limb and say that I think It's Hard is a better album than By Numbers. .
    The Who By Numbers has nothing that's as bad as Why Did I Fall For That or Athena. Even Squeeze Box is better than those two songs.

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    All three have some resounding duds but you can make a helluva playlist if you cull the best tracks.

    Kenny Jones doesn't get enough credit. The band did lose a major cog in terms of manic propulsion. But because Kenny kept the beat a whole lot steadier than Moon in his decline it gave Entwistle a chance to stand out some more and Pete could extend without having to worry about the rhythm. See below

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    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    nothing that's as bad as Why Did I Fall For That
    Such a wide world of variety out there. It's one of my favorite songs on the album. I mean, I guess I can understand that Roger's Roy Orbison imitation in the verses might make somebody wince, but the chorus is catchy and features some solid Moony-style drums propelling it along. I'm listening to it again and I still really like it.
    Last edited by ThomasKDye; 04-19-2018 at 12:25 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sturgeon's Lawyer View Post
    I'll go out on a limb and say that I think It's Hard is a better album than By Numbers. Not up there with stone classics like Quadrophenia and The Who Sell Out, but a damn good album.
    I agree as I've liked it from day one.
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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    The Who By Numbers has nothing that's as bad as Why Did I Fall For That or Athena. Even Squeeze Box is better than those two songs.
    I love Athena! I think we've covered this before. While the song isn't really what you'd expect for The Who, the lyric is great, IMO, and fits the music very well. Much more like a solo Townshend song I guess.
    Last edited by JKL2000; 04-19-2018 at 01:34 PM.

  11. #11
    At Shea, it's raining and I think that has some influence on the audience. They are a tad subdued. It was in October so I imagine it was a bit on cool side too. I think since the audience was subdued it affected the band's performance too. Townshend has said the Who had no business playing Shea Stadium and he did not want to do that show. I actually like the Seattle performance better. I agree that It's Hard is fine Who album. Better than Face Dances because the production was better. Glyn Johns was a much better fit. Jones' playing was the best of his career in the Who.

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  12. #12
    re: Why Did I Fall For That,

    Quote Originally Posted by ThomasKDye View Post
    Such a wide world of variety out there. It's one of my favorite songs on the album. I mean, I guess I can understand that Roger's Roy Orbison imitation in the verses might make somebody wince, but the chorus is catchy and features some solid Moony-style drums propelling it along. I'm listening to it again and I still really like it.
    What makes me wince are the arrangement and the lyrics. It strikes me as another of example of Townshend not wanting to do rock music anymore.
    I love Athena! I think we've covered this before. While the song isn't really what you'd expect for The Who, the lyric is great, IMO, and fits the music very well. Much more like a solo Townshend song I guess.
    The "She's not just a girl/She's a BOMB" refrain always bugged me. And like you say, maybe it feels more like a Townshend solo song, maybe that's part of what I don't like about it. I was gonna suggest that if it were me, I certainly wouldn't have opened the album with it, but thinking about it now, I'm not sure where else on the record you could have stuck it, because it does feel like an "opening song", and none of the other songs really do, though I think it might have been fun to stick one of the Entwistle songs in as the opener.
    I actually like the Seattle performance better.
    I'll have to dig out my DVD-R of that one. Like I said, I've got both that and San DIego, and I can't remember which one it is (or maybe it's both of them), but after the first couple songs, Daltrey asks the audience on the field to move back from the stage, to relieve the pressure on the people down the front. I'm sure Cincinnati was still fresh in his mind (as well as the others).

    One funny thing about Shea Stadium is, The Clash was the openign band. If you've ever seen the video to Should I Stay Or Should I Go, it was shot during one of the Shea Stadium shows. I remember the first time I saw the video, way back when, I could never understand why there was another drumkit sitting behind Terry Chimes' kit. It wasn't until much later I figured the circumstances of the video shoot. During the intro of the video, there's an overhead helicopter shot of the building, which cuts away just as the copter swung around to show the giant "WHO" banner that spanned the staging.
    I agree that It's Hard is fine Who album. Better than Face Dances because the production was better. Glyn Johns was a much better fit.
    For me, it's more about the songwriting than the production. I mean, Townshend brought some truly awful songs to the Face Dances sessions. I'm thinking specifically of Cache Cache, Did You Steal My Money, and How Can You Do It Alone. I don't remember enough about Daily Records to comment on it, but my feeling is Pete's best song on the entire album was Another Tricky Day. You Better You Bet is not bad, though I again wince at the self referential allusion to Who's Next, and Don't Let Go The Coat is a decent song too, if a bit un-Who like, to my ears. But really, the two best songs on that record are the Entwistle contributions, You (listen to that 8-string bass!) and The Quiet One.

    I've always maintained you could have gotten a really good, maybe even great album, if you compiled the best songs from both Face Dances and It's Hard. But thinking about it now, there's maybe too many good songs to make just one LP. Maybe you'd need an LP and an EP, or something.
    Jones' playing was the best of his career in the Who.
    That's funny, I've always heard it said he was better with The Small Faces than he was with The Who.

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    Member since March 2004 mozo-pg's Avatar
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    The Clash were a much better match to tour with the Who on that so-called Farewell Tour. I was at the Toronto show and Joe Jackson was the opening act. The audience was downright hostel to Joe's band which is unfortunately but it was still a pretty odd match in the first place. Someone threw a drink up on the stage that hit a female band member and Joe was livid. He chastised the audience but evenly got playful - taking a picture the audience giving him the finger!

  14. #14
    I never really had problems with the songs on Face Dances. I always thought How Can You Do it Alone was a great tune. Daily Records is a great one too. Did You Steal My Money is the weakest song on the album. I just really didn't like the production of Bill Szymcyk. It had that flat sound he always gave the Eagles. I think Glyn Johns would have made Face Dances much more lively sounding.

    I enjoyed Jones' work in the Small Faces/Faces but Ronnie Lane wasn't the bassist the Entwistle was and I think it gave Jones a lot more to work with. Daltrey didn't care much for Jones' work though. Of course, Zak Starkey is a better fit all the way around. He's got the steadyness of Jones, which he picked up from Ringo and the flamboyance of Moon.

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    Quote Originally Posted by JKL2000 View Post
    Anyone seen this and have an opinion? In the Bands your proud to have seen thread I mentioned the Who in 1982 (sort of tangentially), and it got me thinking when I saw them on this tour I was FAR away and couldn't see a lot. I actually enjoy the It's Hard album, and wouldn't mind seeing a DVD from this tour, so I searched and found there's this Shea Stadium release. If it's decent I might get a used copy or something. Might be fun to see Shea Stadium again, as opposed to Shitty Field.
    Was at that show. Under the overhang thankfully but far away. I would like to see that one again too.

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    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post

    I'll have to dig out my DVD-R of that one. Like I said, I've got both that and San DIego, and I can't remember which one it is (or maybe it's both of them), but after the first couple songs, Daltrey asks the audience on the field to move back from the stage, to relieve the pressure on the people down the front. I'm sure Cincinnati was still fresh in his mind (as well as the others)..
    From my view in the mezzanine at Shea Stadium, the most vivid memory I have is that of the crowd all forcing forward towards the stage. Looked like 30 rows of people in the front 10 rows, so Roger probably said for fans to move back at every show. That, and the nonstop rain. Not heavy, it was a steady, annoying mist all night. It was also the last time I ever did blow.
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  17. #17
    I've not seen this but I had the Toronto show taped for many years on a VHS tape. I love it, it's The Who at their very best to me; meaty, beaty, big and bouncy! They got too inconsistent during the 70's because of Moons drinking and suchlike. It's Hard is a great album too, they went out on a high and should have stayed done.

    The loss of Entwistle was bigger than the loss of Moon IMO, I saw them twice, once in the late 90's with Joe Strummer supporting and once at Glastonbury post Entwistle and the difference in power was huge.

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    I've had this dvd for some time now, and I remember that, while it's not bad as such, there's an awful degree of stiffness to a lot of the performance that seems to emanate from both Kenny Jones's growing sense of debilitation in the face of constant criticism from Daltrey (contrast KJ in 1982 with his brilliant performances with the band in 1979, e.g. the Concert for Kampuchea or the Chicago gig from the '79 tour), and the unavoidable conclusion that this is a band simply going through the motions without particularly wanting to be there. Personally, I thought It's Hard is an awful album - comfortably the worst of the Who's career - for the same reasons. Utterly unmemorable in every way.

  19. #19
    A lot of people blast It's Hard. I've never found it to be weak at all. It's not Quadrophenia, of course. Still, I've always appreciated It's Hard.

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    Jones was technically a more solid player but for some reason reined it in here, and that left a big hole in the sound- something Daltrey cottoned onto early on. He really doesn't offer much beyond timekeeping in The Who, yet was all over the kit in The (Small) Faces. It's the same with Ronnie Wood in The 'Stones, nothing really to compare with- say- 'That's All You Need', or that lovely little solo version of 'Jerusalem'.

    However, I think this was still a better period than the 'on ice' 1989 tour, at least in this period it was just the four of them and a keyboard player.

    Quote Originally Posted by Adm.Kirk View Post
    I never really had problems with the songs on Face Dances. I always thought How Can You Do it Alone was a great tune. Daily Records is a great one too. Did You Steal My Money is the weakest song on the album. I just really didn't like the production of Bill Szymcyk. It had that flat sound he always gave the Eagles. I think Glyn Johns would have made Face Dances much more lively sounding.
    I think there was a solid album to be made out of both, but they are flawed as they stand. Face Dances has some real howlers- 'Cache Cache', 'Did You Steal My Money', ugh. I find the production slick, fussy and gimmicky- no edge to it, which is a major flaw for The Who. On the other hand, 'You Better You Bet' was a strong comeback single, 'Another Tricky Day' is another gem. It's Hard has a better overall sound and 'Eminence Front' is a classic, but there's a sense of them going through the motions on other songs. The original mix was seemingly rushed- 'Eminence Front' has Townshend's vocal off to one speaker and the vocal goes out of time for a few seconds.

  21. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by JJ88 View Post
    Jones was technically a more solid player but for some reason reined it in here, and that left a big hole in the sound- something Daltrey cottoned onto early on. He really doesn't offer much beyond timekeeping in The Who, yet was all over the kit in The (Small) Faces. It's the same with Ronnie Wood in The 'Stones, nothing really to compare with- say- 'That's All You Need', or that lovely little solo version of 'Jerusalem'.

    However, I think this was still a better period than the 'on ice' 1989 tour, at least in this period it was just the four of them and a keyboard player.
    I certainly agree with you viz-a-vis Kenney Jones era The Who versus Simon Phillips era. I think the problem with the 89 tour was, because of Townshend's hearing problems, they had to have a larger band to fill out the sound, to compensate for them playing at a lower volume level. Thus, they had to rehearse this giant ensemble so that it would sound good with the backup singers, horns, etc. Hence, they took a lot of the edge out of the music that was present even during the Jones era. I think part of the old Who's sound, circa 64-82, was they didn't over rehearse the music, they got it to the point where they could play it well, but with an edge to it that sounded like it could potentially go sideways at any moment. You didn't have that on the 89 tour.

    The other problem in 89 was the over use of the auxiliary musicians, for instance, using horns on songs that never had horns on them before. And Steve Bolton didn't even come close to playing like Townshend, whenever he took a solo. Also, when Townshend played electric, he was plugged into a rig that fed his signal direct into the PA, with no speakers. Miking up a speaker cabinet is a big part of what's normally considered great guitar tones, especially when any amount of distortion is involved. Nowadays, you have speaker emulation and virtual amp rigs that can simulate the effect of a cranked up, going through whatever speaker configuration you want, with whatever mics at whatever distance in front of said speakers, etc. But that stuff didn't exist in 1989, so Pete had this incredibly sterile guitar tone (something, I admit, I didn't notice on the night, in Municipal Stadium, but when watching concert footage of the tour at home, you can hear it).

    But getting back to Jones, I think they had the same problem they had with Entwistle's death, where I think, out of respect to the recently departed, they might have said "Don't play too much like him" (or in the case of when they went out on tour with Pino Palladino on bass, they had him buried in the mix in a way that Thunderfingers never was). So, on paper, Kenney Jones is the perfect replacement for Keith, ie he's "that type of a drummer", he's already part of the band's inner circle, so there's no trouble of getting an "outsider" or whatever. But maybe Kenney, or any given contingency within the band, may have said "don't play too much like Keith", and maybe, perhaps, he overcompensated.



    I think there was a solid album to be made out of both, but they are flawed as they stand. Face Dances has some real howlers- 'Cache Cache', 'Did You Steal My Money', ugh. I find the production slick, fussy and gimmicky- no edge to it, which is a major flaw for The Who. On the other hand, 'You Better You Bet' was a strong comeback single, 'Another Tricky Day' is another gem. It's Hard has a better overall sound and 'Eminence Front' is a classic, but there's a sense of them going through the motions on other songs. The original mix was seemingly rushed- 'Eminence Front' has Townshend's vocal off to one speaker and the vocal goes out of time for a few seconds.[/QUOTE]

    The "vocal going out of time" on Eminence Front is the result of Townshend singing "hiding on an Eminence Front" during one of the choruses, instead of just "Eminence Front". It's got nothing to do with how the song was mixed or any other production issue. It was Pete throwing in something, perhaps spontaneously, during the lead vocal overdub. Maybe Glyn Johns should have told Pete to go back in the vocal booth and do another take, but I think it was a mistake to remove it when they did the remix for the mid 90's remaster.

    As for the vocal being all the way off to one side on the original mix, I dunno why it was like that. That's something you'd have expected on a 60's era or early 70's record, not something that was done in 1982. Maybe they wanted to make it easy for fans to do a "karaoke mix" by simply moving the balance control on the stereo over to the other side? (shrug)

    For me, a bigger issue on Eminence Front is, as I said, that awful guitar tone. I'm sorry, but Townshend usually has a big, brash guitar tone, and you hear it on other songs on this album, for instance on It's Hard itself, but on Eminence Front, it's this thin, weak, anemic tone that just doesn't sound right to my ears. And he didn't have that tone when they played the song live either.

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    FWIW Daltrey went on record as loathing It's Hard. I think by that point in time they were just done with each other, and all of them still- understandably- struggling to come to terms with Moon's death.

    I will say that Daltrey and Townshend had some really bad hair days in this early 80s period. Just awful, Townshend seemed to be auditioning for a New Romantic group.

    As for 1989, the 'cast of thousands' approach sort of worked on Tommy but not on the rest. I hated the simplified, dumbed-down stadium rock arrangement of 'I Can See For Miles'...one of my favourite singles by anyone in its original form.

  23. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by JJ88 View Post
    FWIW Daltrey went on record as loathing It's Hard. I think by that point in time they were just done with each other, and all of them still- understandably- struggling to come to terms with Moon's death.
    I think, initially, they were determined to prove they could keep going without Keith, for whatever reason, but it seems like that changed quickly. I sometimes wonder if the Cincinnati debacle didn't contribute to that, as in "Why are we still doing this to ourselves?" or whatever. You've got all three of them making solo albums, and Pete in particular seems to be writing songs that are "not right for this band", as well as probably being tired of having to live up to an image he invented for himself during the 60's/early 70's. I wonder how much "contractual obligation" was at work with regard to Face Dances and It's Hard. Did they already owe the record company two more albums in 1978, or what?

    I will say that Daltrey and Townshend had some really bad hair days in this early 80s period. Just awful, Townshend seemed to be auditioning for a New Romantic group.
    For me, it's not so much the hair as the clothes. I didn't notice back in 1982-1983, but you watch some of the concert footage from this tour, and the outfits they are wearing are...I dunno, they have the "mid-life crisis" vibe, like they're trying to prove their still 20 years old or something, wearing muscle shirts, pants and jackets with zippers all over the place, etc.

    If you ask me, for Daltrey, the "bad hair day" era was during the 70's, when he grew his hair out and that huge mane that kinda looked...I dunno, not silly, but I thought when he cut it in 79, it was an improvement.
    As for 1989, the 'cast of thousands' approach sort of worked on Tommy but not on the rest.
    I don't think it even works that well with Tommy, certainly not any better than when they played the Tommy suite they were doing on The Who By Numbers tour. I think it worked just fine with just the four of them.
    the simplified, dumbed-down stadium rock arrangement of 'I Can See For Miles'...
    Which they were already doing in 1982 (it's on at least one of the bootlegs I have from that tour).

    The problem with 1989 is, really, the whole motivation for the tour. Everyone was right, they did it for the money (Townshend even admitted it at the time), but it wasn't just a matter of responding to "America's desire to make us rich again" (as Townshend once put it). Entwistle had gotten into serious financial trouble by the late 80's. He lost a huge amount of money doing a solo tour in the mid 80's, and continued to "live like a rock star", even as the money stopped coming in, during the mid 80's. They basically did that tour to bail him out, so he wouldn't lose his house.

    Hence, they had to figure out a way to make it "work", without continuing to frell up Townshend's hearing (which actually had been an issue since the mid 70's, there's a bit in The Kids Are Alright where he sort of makes light of the situation, saying a doctor had told him he should learn how to lip read). That's why they had all these extra musicians, not because the songs necessarily needed it, but because they had to play at a quieter volume level, and that "big sound" The Who were known for would have theoretically disappeared, if they just went onstage with five musicians, as they had done circa 1979-1982. I remember that being said back in 1989 (specifically in a big article in Rolling Stone about the tour), and it was also reiterated in a documentary that was done...must have been about 10 years ago, they're talking about Entwistle, and about how a big part of the band's sound was his amps being cranked up loud, and then Townshend's amps being cranked up to match The Ox's.

    If I'm not mistaken, it's a similar conceit as to why composers like Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham composed music in the 1980's that was played at ear bleeding volume levels, because all this harmonic information and other psychoacoustic phenomenon occurs when you're playing that loud that doesn't happen when you've got the volume turned down. I remember Branca's hearing got damaged to the point that he started figuring out ways to get similar sounds from an acoustic instruments (and in fact, there's apparently a whole field of acoustic music that's informed by high decibel music, as well as electronic music).

    I remember seeing an interview Townshend did years later, I think around the time of the 2000 tour, and he said something to the effect that by then, he was using an amp that gave him the tone he had back in the 70's, but at a quieter volume level. I guess those options weren't available in 1989.

    The thing is, the instrumentation they had on the 1989 tour could have made sense from a musical stand point, as there are a lot of Who songs that have brass in them, having multi-tracked backing vocals, keyboards, acoustic guitar, etc. And when did the Quadrophenia revival in 1996, they demonstrated that a group that big could still "sound like The Who". But they went about it the wrong way in 1989.

    Having said all that, it was still a bit of a rush to finally get to see The Who in concert, as I was too young to have seen them in 1982. I don't think my tastes had developed to the point where I could appreciate how the horns "didn't sound right" being used on songs that had never had horns on them, for instance. And I remember Entwistle's crazy bass solo during My Generation unlike any that I've heard on any other version of the song, as well him breaking out an 8 string Buzzard for Trick Of The Light (which he sang himself, instead of handing it over to Daltrey, as he did on the studio version). I was just stoked to see The Who perform. And those were the longest shows they ever did, they played for around 2 and a half hours each night of that tour.

    It wasn't until a few years later, when I revisited the video they put out from the LA show (the one with them playing almost all of Tommy, with all the guests), as well as a bootleg of the Cleveland show, that I realized just how..."not right" and "Las Vegas" the results had been. And as I said, I eventually came to the conclusion that band was way, way way over rehearsed, and that took a lot of the "sizzle" out of it.

    Things sounded better when I saw them do Quadrophenia in 96, and especially when I saw them 2000, when it was just Roger, John, Pete, Rabbit, and Son Of Ringo. The 2000 show, it came very close to sound like the early/mid 70's era band.

  24. #24
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    I remember seeing a BBC showing of some of their 2000-ish Royal Albert Hall concert and thinking, that's The Who. I still think that. More 'professional' than they'd been in the 60s and 70s but truer to that sound than they'd been in the 80s. (I think The 'Stones also managed to find a similar balance in their 90s shows.) Such a shame that Entwistle didn't last much longer, and that we didn't get a new album by that band in the mid-late 90s or early 00s. The chemistry was there again, and it wasn't in the 80s.

    Their (to date) only post-It's Hard album Endless Wire was piecemeal in recording and execution, and didn't exactly set the world alight. I listen to it now and like it a little more than I did at the time, but it's still patchy. The first song was called 'Fragments' and that seems to be a better title for the album, as that's really what it is. The later track 'Be Lucky' I didn't like, there's even some Cher-style autotune for a few seconds. It's not far from those silly early 80s songs like 'Did You Steal My Money'.
    Last edited by JJ88; 04-28-2018 at 03:39 AM.

  25. #25
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    I caught the 82 tour with a small group of friends (seniors in high school!) at the LA Colosseum, with the Clash and T-Bone Burnett opening.

    We got there early enough to get a good spot on the field near the stage. T-Bone Burnett was painfully dull, but we were curious about the Clash. None of us were really fans, but we liked a few of their radio hits. But by the time they were about to go on it was pretty "moshy" down there, and the vibe amongst their crowd was getting openly hostile towards those of us who were clearly not their crowd. So we opted for safety and found some open seats near mid field about half way up.

    But that experience put a damper on the whole rest of the show for us, which the Who's performance didn't do much to improve. As others have commented there was a sense that they were going through the motions. Townsend especially looked like he could have cared less about being here. I liked most of the new material, although I've never been a fan of "You Better You Better You Bet" which for me verges on bubble-gum pop. And Kenny Jones -- they could have found 100 drummers with more personality. Yeah, yeah "He was part of our crowd"... I guess it helped give them a feeling of family as they were dealing with Keith Moon's passing, but as a drummer he did them no favors IMO.

    I agree the 89 shows weren't their best (I taped the LA cable performance) with Phil Collins' "Uncle Ernie" and Billy Idol's "Cousin Kevin" especially cringey. But Simon Phillips was a joy to watch throughout. I do agree, also, that the 2000 Albert Hall gig was much better and closer to exhibiting true Who DNA.
    I'm holding out for the Wilson-mixed 5.1 super-duper walletbuster special anniversary extra adjectives edition.

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