The Who

[onthewall2983]

Revisiting Quadrophenia has been a focus of attention lately, with the performance of the album by the band (or what's left of it, if you're of that wind) being their last public performance, the release of the recent box set featuring Pete's demos and loads of other interesting material, and the recent hints that the 1979 film will be released by the Criterion Collection on Blu-Ray and DVD. This website features a lot of related material, including a recent extensive interview with Pete discussing the inception of the project. This is their official website for news, updates, etc, etc.

[emptydesk]

THE WHO SELL OUT in mono is one of the best albums ever made.

[allegro]

Revisiting Quadrophenia has been a focus of attention lately, with the performance of the album by the band (or what's left of it, if you're of that wind) being their last public performance, the release of the recent box set featuring Pete's demos and loads of other interesting material, and the recent hints that the 1979 film will be released by the Criterion Collection on Blu-Ray and DVD. This website features a lot of related material, including a recent extensive interview with Pete discussing the inception of the project. This is their official website for news, updates, etc, etc.

Awesome! Love that album, love love love. Saw them perform it at the United Center in 1996 was AWESOME.

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-wh...-1bd7ddd0.html

[onthewall2983]

I saw them in 2002, the first tour after Entwistle passed away, with Robert Plant opening. Roger and Pete were on form, but the band's sound was considerably softened without John chugging away in the back. Pino Palladino had all the balls in the world to take the job, but his tone and capabilities lacked that whip-lash effect John's sound brought to bear. It's all especially sad if you consider that in the time he was playing with the band before his demise, they sounded better live than they had since Keith died, thanks to Zak Starkey bringing those drum parts alive again.

[allegro]

The movie was a LOT better than I anticipated at the time, I didn't think anybody could possibly do it justice but I was wrong. And STING as The Face?!?!? Omg.



Would love to have a Blu-Ray version.

I echo Eddie Vedder's sentiments that Quadrophenia was THE representative masterpiece from my teen years. I spent many hours in the dark, smoking weed, by myself in my room, and listening via headphones to Quadrophenia. I listen to it now and I am immediately transported back in time and I remember everything, just like I'm still there; incense, candles, a joint, and Quadrophenia.

*sigh*

Yeah, Entwistle was definitely the unsung hero in that band.

[onthewall2983]

I've not seen the movie yet, but am highly curious since I've been reading some pretty high praise of it, outside this thread. And also because I want to see what Ray Winstone was like as a younger actor. The album was personal to me during my own teenage struggle to understand things like, love, life and family.

The emotional attachment people have to Townshend's writing is really only rivaled by people like Dylan or Lennon/McCartney. And for me, he's 2nd to nobody. His gift for being completely in touch as a writer and a storyteller has never gone away. And you really won't find another rock star of his generation who utterly accepts his lot in life now as an elder statesman (and the responsibilities that come along, such as embracing the newer generations of musicians, like Eddie Vedder), and is easy to point out the failings of his generation as opposed to the Graham Nash's of the world (not a knock on him as a musician at all, btw), who are guilty for deifying the Woodstock generation, mostly for not recognizing it as the Altamont generation as well. Pete knew this as early as "Baba O'Riley", and maybe even when he was kicking Abbie Hoffman off the stage when the band played late into the night at that festival in upstate New York.

This is possibly the best song he's ever written, and it was never performed by The Who, and might be my favorite song of all-time.

[allegro]

The emotional attachment people have to Townshend's writing is really only rivaled by people like Dylan or Lennon/McCartney.

Amen to that.

This is one of my favorites (from Quadrophenia, of course):



Here's Eddie singing it:

[allegro]

when we saw the Who in 1996, some guy behind us kept screaming "PLAY MY WIFE" heh



But, I was hoping for BEHIND BLUE EYES for the encore, and I got my wish:

[onthewall2983]

"in reference to the Vedder "I'm One" performance" ^ That is an incredible DVD with some cool guest spots (sans Bryan Adams fucking up the lyrics to "Behind Blue Eyes", but I digress), from that period I mentioned a few posts back when the band was beginning to become alive again with Starkey summoning the spirit of Keith, but infusing it with his own style.

[allegro]

Keith was nutty and fun but he was never one of my favorite drummers because, for me, he used way too much filler. Know what I mean? I mean, just listen to "I'm One" and listen to how much unnecessary fill is in there. I don't like Neil Peart for the same reason; he has the need to use every single drum all the time because even one moment of silence drives him nuts, or something. Showy drummer, "LOOK AT ME, I'M BACK HERE, TOO, LADIES, AND I'M HUNG LIKE A HORSE, BUT YOU DON'T NOTICE ME BECAUSE I'M WAY THE FUCK BACK HERE, SO I'M GONNA GET YOUR ATTENTION BY USING ALL THESE 47 DRUMS AND 900 CYMBALS!!!"

Drummers like Bonzo or even Stewart Copeland didn't have that incessant need to use showy fill.

Listen to the below song: Do you hear constant drum-rolling "use all 20 pieces of my drum kit" fill? No, because Bonzo used, like, 3 drums most of the time, sometimes only two and a hi-hat. And he made it sound like a fucking marching band was keeping rhythm.



But I digress ...

Entwistle was kinda the same way on bass, I guess, now that I think about it.

[onthewall2983]

Moon's overall energy was his real contribution to the band, that includes his skill at the drums for me. And this video makes sense of how his madness worked with the band's chemistry, and especially with Roger. I do think Kenney Jones gets too much flak for stepping in after his death. He is a hell of a drummer, and he came in at a time when the three others were beginning to fatigue.

[allegro]

Well, yeah, "Bombastic" was how they always described Keith's style. Because Keith was nuts, and often really drunk.

Keith had become much more of a liability by the time he died.

Pete sums it up REALLY well ^^ up there, thanks for posting that, hadn't seen it.

And I totally disagree with Roger. But, he's a lead singer so, yeah, whatever. Snort.

[onthewall2983]

What did you make of Endless Wire? I didn't really give it much of a chance over the years, but it's really grown on me.

[Cameron]

Was a huge fan from about 16-18, owned all of the albums, DVDs, singles, solo work etc. Saw them live in Atlanta in 2006; a piece of me always will love this band.

[allegro]

My first significant memory of the Who is when I used to babysit for this little girl, Stephanie, she was about 3, her dad was a fireman and had weird hours, and I dunno what her mom did, but they were a nice couple, and her mom would always make a nice dinner for Stephanie and me. I'd feed me and Stephanie, we'd play and read books for a while, then I'd put Stephanie to bed at around 6 or 7, per her mom's request, then I'd raid Stephanie's parents' record collection -- which was MASSIVE and AWESOME -- and I'd spend HOURS lying on the floor listening to records via headphones.

Stephanie's dad had "Live at Leeds" and I remember thinking "this sure doesn't sound very 'live' to me" but I kept listening to it over and over again, because it was awesome. I think I was around 14 at the time.

What did you make of Endless Wire? I didn't really give it much of a chance over the years, but it's really grown on me.

Truthfully, I gave up on them upon the release of "The Who by Numbers." Mostly because of Squeezebox. If you'd been around then and heard that fucking song 800 times on the radio, you'd hate it, too. Slip Kid was okay, but I just couldn't get past Squeezebox and I gave up on them completely.

[botley]

To me they were a FUNNY band, in the same way as The Beatles, who were so damn clever and witty all the time. The perfect encapsulation of this was Jeff Stein's documentary The Kids Are Alright, which is stuffed to the gills with hilarious interviews and clowning around (not to mention all those classic performances).

I'll be sad if they do draw a line under it all with a performance of Quadrophenia, as that record is antithetical to this spirit (it doesn't even warrant a mention in the above doc). It's so po-faced, at least in comparison to almost everything else in their catalogue.

[onthewall2983]

The humor is one part of their appeal to me. You won't find a band with better stage banter, even now. When I saw them in 2002 after John died, and Pete was introducing everyone on stage, he said something to the effect of there won't be much of a band anymore if one of us drops out soon. I'm doing it no justice at all but it was as darkly humorous as I remembered it.

A lot of that belonged to Keith. He basically is the star of The Kids Are Alright. They had the unique distinction of having three people fight for attention as opposed to other bands at the time who probably had two (think Zeppelin and the Stones). And certainly some of the early singles had a humorous edge to them, like "Boris The Spider" or "Happy Jack". And so a lot of that died, along with Keith. I maintain that Face Dances and It's Hard were mostly good albums, but I'm beginning to see if they maintained on that course, the quality would have tapered off quite a bit.

[botley]

True about Moon the Loon. The one semi-fun part of the Quad shows was always his lead on "Bell Boy"!

[onthewall2983]

[botley]

IShit, I'd forgotten about that performance of "Baba O'Riley" with an actual live violin solo by Nigel Kennedy. I got chills watching that — John Entwhistle's tapping in the outro totally makes the song, too — and how about Pete's desperate scream of "FUCK OFF" in the bridge? Fucking amazing.

But I must say, to me this is the ultimate live Who performance on film. It's just perfect. Listen to Roger & John's vocals, Pete and Keith's impeccable, crazy-furious over-the-top-ness, the whole thing is ludicrously badass. It was enough to embarass their hosts, The Rolling Stones, at the prospect of getting so thoroughly fucking *owned* by another band, to the point of not showing this in public for YEARS:



EDIT: This is also pretty great.



And this. MAXIMUM R&B!



Half-live, half-mimed on the goddamned Tom Jones show!

[Cameron]

Man, I used to be so into the Who. This whole thread is a nostalgia trip

[allegro]

Whoops, sorry, iPad flip out.

[allegro]

The Who at their awesome best was Isle of Lucy.

[onthewall2983]

A medley of "Road Runner" (the first song they ever played with Keith, I believe) and a bluesy "My Generation".

One of my favorite songs, best performed live. A more somber number, I think the roots of which were planted during a jam on one of their songs during their Woodstock set.

5:15, another great live number. I was hoping to find one with an Entwistle bass solo, but was surprised to find a video from this show which I guess has just recently been found.

I honestly wasn't expecting much from them at Live 8, but with the killer rhythm section they borrowed from Paul Weller, they went above and beyond expectations for me.

Another song way better live than it's studio counterpart. They were slammed quite badly for their '82 tour (the live Who's Last album got some of the worst reviews of their career), but from what I've seen and heard they were quite good with Kenney Jones. No doubt they lost some of the edge Keith brought, but Jones is by no means a slouch on the kit. He just had the unfortunate fate to follow-up the un-followable to many people.

I'm including this performance of "Won't Get Fooled Again" because after finding it again recently, it's my humble that it's the best the song had ever sounded since Keith died. The version in The Kids Are Alright is quite iconic for being Moon's final performance and being so visually striking with it's use of lasers (that were borrowed by another film in production at Shepperton Studios at the time, Alien). This performance solidified the band's reputation that night as those who stole the show. In the recent Paul McCartney documentary The Love We Make about the concert, former president Clinton talks to Paul about the performance (going as far to ask if it's Ringo's son behind the kit). And it was sadly Entwistle's last American show before he died in 2002, ending an all-too brief resurgence in the band as a real live powerhouse. They've managed to carry on since, but for me it hasn't been quite the same live since.

[onthewall2983]

Coming August 28th.

[onthewall2983]

[onthewall2983]

The band hits the road this fall/winter for a Quadrophenia tour of the States and Canada, will play the finale of the Olympics (without Keith)

[allegro]

The band hits the road this fall/winter for a Quadrophenia tour of the States and Canada, will play the finale of the Olympics (without Keith)

(and without Entwhistle)

I'm torn; we already saw the 96/97 live version (with Entwhistle) but this one is supposed to be some kind of huge production.

[onthewall2983]

If they did Quadrophenia with a full orchestra I'd be more interested. Pete's keyboards and John's brass had very large classical (Wagner in particular) aspirations. Instead they have 3 keyboard players emulating those parts this time around, including Chris Stainton who played piano on the studio versions of "5:15" and "Drowned".

[allegro]

If they did Quadrophenia with a full orchestra I'd be more interested.

I absolutely agree. You just sealed it for me; I really have zero interest in seeing this again.

(I do want to see the souped-up version of the movie, though.)