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 Best live WHO! Feb 20, 2010
The Who at their peak physically & musically. Best live performance caught on film. Good picture and sound. Fresh from "Tommy" and developing "Lifehouse" which became "Who's Next". I am a Who fan and this is the best example of why they are known as the best live band---ever!!!
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Murray Lerner hits another home run Dec 20, 2009
Murray Lerner, premier film-maker once again produced a first rate concert film, marked by his ability to let the band do the talking, so to speak, by their performance. Very tough job to accomplish. Few producer-directors are able to subordinate themselves to their subject. Aside from a minimum number of audience shots to remind us of what the introductory note tells us (and that is all it is, one or two sentences of text to set the context) there are something like 600,000 people out there and it is 2 AM so we know they have seen a good many acts before this one.
Subtitle of the title of the rview should be: for people who have never seen or heard the group before. Inevitably, the percentage of potential buyers who fit this category, whatever it might be today, almost forty years later, will increase exponentially...if any material is available for them to see/hear and if the group somehow survives in the collective memory. Both are unpredictable. Just knowing the two facts given, and what we know about human interaction, it is clear that the instrumental and vocal music, together with the physical movements of the band, are only one part of what goes on in this sort of event. It is a happening built on the justification of listening to music; far more than that, far more than even a Murray Lerner can give us, is taking place. Even for those who were there, watching the DVD, of course, cannot repeat the happening. The storehouse of memory is too dynamic for that to be possible. (One thing I can assert with confidence, if you have been around Rock for forty years, and are still turning it way up, you already have serious hearing damage which is worsening each time you turn it way up.) At any rate, making due allowance for the difference between listening now and being there then, this disc is an excellent way for the newcomer to get some sense of what this very popular band, part of most histories of Rock, was about one day in 1970.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
The best one band concert I've seen on video Oct 13, 2009
This is the best one-band concert I've ever seen caught on video. Yet one of the best concerts in rock-n-roll history remains relatively obscure in part because of continual bickering over a few songs being left out and the order of the concert being altered.
WHO cares when you've got all 4 band members in top form vocally and instrumentally, an incredible set list, very good sound and video quality for 1970, and all 4 members in great, enthusiastic spirits. Moon is an absolute freight-train on drums and there's a ton of great and funny close-ups of him bashing away. A fascinating thing to watch is the close dynamic between Moon and Townshend during the whole show who stay close together and play off each other to perfection throughout. Pete is at the height of his powers musically and vocally and maybe just as importantly is having the time of his life leading the show and playing to the crowd of 600,000. When they sing 'My Generation' it's with the passion of a band playing it for the first time to a live crowd.
Entwistle similarly gets a ton of exposure with his explosive bass-playing, his voice sounds great and even gets lead vocals on the fantastic opening track 'Heaven and Hell'. Roger's vocals have never been better and really add a powerful 4th instrument to the group, and as lead singer as expected gets as much video-time as any of the group.
It's such a shame groups like Led Zeppelin, the Stones, Beatles, etc have generally caught on and have more fans with today's young high-school kids than The Who, when at their height blow any other rock band out-of-the-water on stage.
Before complaining about some small imperfections on this DVD, pop-in the Who's 1981 show on 'The Who Maximum R&B' from Germany, and watch a pretty good but unemotional band sleep-walk their way through a set with seriously diminished skills and enthusiasm and you'll be scrambling back to your DVD/Blu-Ray player to see The Who caught at their incredible zenith here or on audio at Live at Leeds.
This set should be one of the cannons of rock-n-roll history, up there near The Last Waltz as a prime example of the power of rock-n-roll, yet shamefully remains relatively unknown by the general public, even by many hardcore rock fans. I can't help but think it's largely in part due to small bickering about details instead of enjoying the overall big picture.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 An Improvement Over The Original Release May 13, 2009
Dedicated fans of the Who will probably already have the earlier DVD release of this documentary. This newer one is better, with worthwhile improvements in video and audio quality (especially the latter), two tracks from the "Tommy" set that were not included in the 85-minute original (why not?), and an excellent 40-minute modern-day interview of Pete Townshend by Murray Learner, the original documentrist.
I'm giving it four instead of five stars because this re-release could not or did not repair some of the frustrations of the original film: The camera angles are often poor (you'll see the back of Pete's left shoulder a lot), and the framing too tight; the audio and video are imperfectly synched in places, which seems particularly galling after almost 40 years of technology advance; there is too much (meaning some) use of rapid in-and-out camera zoom in time with the music, which is pointlessly distracting and was already hackneyed even in 1970; there is too much footage wasted on the crowd (you didn't go to the concert to see the audience); and the camera gives short shrift to John Entwhistle, the superb Ox, arguably the greatest bass player in rock history. And finally, it's a historic performance, but not the Who's best. If you have the expanded audio CD re-issues of "Live at Leeds" and "Who's Next" (and you should), the songs are in general performed better there.
So why even four stars, then? Because the Who, even at 2am on an off night, have never been topped as a live act; because this is, in fact, virtually a music video of "Live at Leeds," given the supreme but understated confidence of the band, their mastery of the audience, and the overwhelming sense of serious fun they brought to a performance; because the camera's admiring and admirable footage of Keith Moon, that rocket-fueled Puck, is almost a movie in itself; because Townshend never did, said, or played anything that wasn't interesting; and because this show, like "Live at Leads," happened at the crest between two eras: the crashing late-60s R&B-Who was giving place to the melodic and complicated Tommy-Daltry-Who, with hints ("Water," "Don't Even Know Myself") of the Next Who.
So overall, it is a fair movie of a great band, which makes it an almost-great movie. I would recommend just as much, though, "The Who at Kilburn: 1977," which contains that performance, seven years after the Isle of Wight, and one from 1969 at the London Coliseum -- two shows that bookend this more famous and better-known document.
BEST WHO Feb 12, 2009
The Absolute F------------king Best WHO concert DVD EVER! EVER!
Raw electric energy, the band at their prime, giving an exciting and energetic performance in England in front of 600,000 people......the band was peaking in 1970 and this DVD captures it all. A perfect...perfect 10!
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