I love "Live At Leeds", but when I want to listen to a complete and great show from that era, this is the one that I put on. It's a great and ferocious performance. It's not edited as is Leeds with "Tommy" segregated from the rest of the show. And it sounds great. The second disc on the deluxe edition of "Live At Leeds" sounds as if it was mixed through a telephone receiver.

A few months back somebody pointed out that there seemed to be an acoustic guitar overdubbed onto the Largo "Won't Get Fooled Again", released on the "View From A Backstage Pass" and "Greatest Hits Live" sets. I'm kind of inclined to believe that Daltrey and Townshend (Townshend is on record saying as much) aren't really in love with that show--two of the better "Quadrophenia" song performances were cherry-picked for VFABP and none at all were used for the "Quadrophenia" box. I have to agree somewhat--their attempt to being "Quadrophenia" to the stage with 1973 concert technology had problems. By the time they played Charlton in May of 1974, most of the "Quadrophenia" stuff had been jettisoned.

I'd also personally be all for releasing their entire Woodstock show, although I seem to like that show better than most people. There's also stuff like the 1969 Amsterdam show and the 1968 Fillmore East show, which for whatever reason the Who seem inclined to pretend does not exist.

There's a few theories going on here. Another one is that for the most part, the Who weren't exactly inclined to dig deep into their catalog on tour--just about every show included "I Can't Explain", "Summertime Blues", "Boris The Spider", "Won't Get Fooled Again" and "See Me, Feel Me." There's just not a massive difference between the set lists for San Francisco, 1971, and Swansea, 1976--the only songs performed in '71 that they didn't play in '76 are "Bargain", "Baby Don't You Do It", "Goin' Down" (all officially released) "Naked Eye" and "Overture". The only newer songs added to their set list at Swansea five years later were "Squeeze Box" and "Dreaming From The Waist" (both officially released); there were no songs from "Quadrophenia"; instead, a mini-version of "Tommy" was performed. So a set like VFABP, which cherry-picked better performances of these songs, arguably makes for a better overall listening experience. "Greatest Hits Live" cherry-picked the vintage Who stuff from VFABP, and the second disc of "Greatest Hits And More" distilled it further still.

The final theory is that the Who professionally recorded only three 1970's concerts, specifically for some type of live album/film/their own further use: Leeds, Hull, and Kilburn. All three have now been released.

I agree. Leeds is a better performance (particularly Moon, who I think had the best night if his career at Leeds) but the combination of editing, resequencing, 1990's vocal overdubs, and amateurish digital processing on the Tommy portion make it a disappointment to listen to on CD. By contrast, IOW sounds nice, and they actually left in the Spoonful section of Shakin' All Over, something that's been edited out of every single release of Leeds.

The Best Of The Who: 20th Century Masters (Millennium Collection) (1999)

1. My Generation 3:19
2. Happy Jack 2:11
3. I Can See For Miles 4:22
4. Magic Bus 3:18
5. Pinball Wizard 3:02
6. Squeeze Box 2:43
7. Behind Blue Eyes 3:42
8. Who Are You 6:18
9. Join Together 4:24
10. Won't Get Fooled Again 8:35
did not chart

A nice photo and one of those annoying, cheap comps which nonetheless went Platinum proving some people don't really care about albums-they'll just buy a cheap hits package like this.
1999 however would prove to be a very special year as The Who finally became The Who (or at least as close to it as they could in 1999) again.
The 5 piece of Pete, Rog, Ox, Rabbit and Zak did a few benefit shows (I think it was Las Vegas-which turned out to be a scam by the clown who organized it- 2 acoustic shows for Neil Young's Bridge School benefit in San Fran and 2 shows in Chicago at the House Of Blues) in the US and a few in the UK prior to Christmas.
The Las Vegas show (which is on one of those not really official/legit releases as The Vegas Job) was smokin'. Portions of the show from Vegas on 10-29-99 were aired live on the short-lived PAX-TV network as were KISS and several others. I happened to catch this after work and couldn't believe that not only were The Who rocking with abandon, but that Pete was wailing away viciously on electric guitar. The show was great despite some miscues, equipment issues, infighting and sarcasm between Pete and Rog and rustiness.
But wasn't all that part of what made The Who, The Who?
This all led to a hugely successful "comeback tour" in 2000. I saw them in Camden, NJ and it was nearly 3 hours of bliss. This show is also a pro-shot boot DVD and is pristine. Again, there are some screwups, but these shows were easily the best they'd done since 1980.
Sadly, it was to end in 2002 when The Ox passed away. But for this brief perios I was again proud to be a Who fan.

An amazing "5:15" from Las Vegas 1999:


And "The Real Me" from Camden in 2000:

I must be misunderstanding what you mean here... I mean, we know San Francisco 1971 and Swansea 1976 at least we're professionally recorded, as well as Tanglewood 1970.

I'd like to see Woodstock released also. I think the handful of tracks that have seen official release (particularly Amazing Journey/Sparks) are very good. I haven't bothered to seek out the boot, though... My understanding is that there isn't a high-quality stereo boot out there like there's for some other 1969 shows.

BBC Sessions (2000)

All tracks written by Pete Townshend except where noted.

1."My Generation (BBC Radio 1 jingle)" – 0:57
2."Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" (Townshend, Roger Daltrey) – 2:44
3."Good Lovin'" (Rudy Clark, Arthur Resnick) – 1:49
4."Just You and Me, Darling" (James Brown) – 2:01
5."Leaving Here" (Holland-Dozier-Holland) – 2:34
6."My Generation" – 3:23
7."The Good's Gone" – 2:59
8."La-La-La-Lies" – 2:11
9."Substitute" – 3:30
10."Man with Money" (Don Everly, Phil Everly) – 2:31
11."Dancing in the Street" (William "Mickey" Stevenson, Marvin Gaye, Ivy Jo Hunter) – 2:23
12."Disguises" – 2:57
13."I'm a Boy" – 2:39
14."Run Run Run" – 3:16
15."Boris the Spider" (John Entwistle) – 2:13
16."Happy Jack" – 2:09
17."See My Way" (Daltrey) – 1:50
18."Pictures of Lily" – 2:34
19."A Quick One, While He's Away" – 7:01
20."Substitute" (Version 2) – 2:12
21."The Seeker" – 3:04
22."I'm Free" – 2:24
23."Shakin' All Over/Spoonful" (Johnny Kidd, Willie Dixon) – 3:41
24."Relay" – 4:56
25."Long Live Rock" – 3:52
26."Boris the Spider" (BBC Radio 1 jingle) (Entwistle) – 0:10

UK #24 US #101

Due to publishing restrictions, the American version dropped "Man with the Money" and edited out the few lines from "Spoonful" contained in "Shakin' All Over".

And the sources for the songs:
Tracks two, four, and five recorded 24 May 1965, at Aeolian Hall, London.
Broadcast on Saturday Club, 29 May 1965. Produced by Jimmy Grant and Brian Willey.
Track three recorded 15 June 1965, at Aeolian Hall, London.
Broadcast on Top Gear, 19 June 1965. Produced by Bernie Andrews.
Tracks six, seven, and eight recorded 22 November 1965, at Aeolian Hall, London.
Broadcast on Saturday Club, 27 November 1965. Produced by Jimmy Grant & Brian Willey.
Tracks nine, 10, and 11 recorded 15 March 1966, at Aeolian Hall, London.
Broadcast on Saturday Club, 19 March 1966. Produced by Jimmy Grant & Brian Willey.
Tracks 12 and 13 recorded 13 September 1966, at the BBC Playhouse Theatre, London.
Broadcast on Saturday Club, 17 September 1966. Produced by Jimmy Grant & Brian Willey.
Tracks 14, 15, 16, and 17 recorded 17 January 1967, at the BBC Playhouse Theatre, London.
Broadcast on Saturday Club, 21 January 1967. Produced by Bill Bebb & Jimmy Grant.
Tracks 1, 18, 19, and 26 recorded 10 October 1967, at De Lane Lea Studio, Kingsway, London.
Broadcast on Top Gear, 15 October 1967. Produced by Bernie Andrews & Bev Phillips.
Tracks 20, 21, 22, and 23 recorded 13 April 1970, at IBC Studios, London.
Broadcast on the Dave Lee Travis show, 19 April 1970. Produced by Paul Williams.
Tracks 24 and 25 recorded 29 January 1973, at the BBC Television Centre, Wood Lane, London, using previously recorded backing tracks.
Broadcast on the Old Grey Whistle Test, BBC Two, 30 January 1973. Produced by Michael Appleton.

And there was also a Best Buy Deluxe Edition:

Best Buy limited edition bonus disc
1.Townshend Talks Tommy
2."Pinball Wizard"
3."See Me, Feel Me"
4."I Don't Even Know Myself"
5."I Can See for Miles"
6."Heaven and Hell"
7."The Seeker"
8."Summertime Blues" (Eddie Cochran, Jerry Capehart)

A nice collection for any Who fan of BBC recording sessions from 1965-73. And, despite the resurgence in the band's popularity, this still didn't sell in the US. Who knows why? But diehards were pleased.

Leeds and Hull were recorded specifically for a live album to follow up "Tommy". Kilburn was staged, filmed and recorded specifically for the film "The Kids Are Alight", although most of the material went unused for thirty years.

I picked up the Best Buy version of this, but I was hugely disappointed that they left off those couple things (which I found out about in ICE) because of licensing. But...one business trip to London later, and I had it at a pretty cheap price. And well worth it.

Alan

Not sure why the release of "The Vegas Job" should be considered unofficial/illegitimate--not only did Daltrey and Entwistle contribute interviews for the DVD, but the copyright information for the show is easily obtainable from the U.S. Copyright Office.

http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebre ... 726&SID=29


Yearhour Limited, the copyright claimant, is a company that has popped up in Who fine print going back at least as far as the "Two Rooms" album. Since it's a UK company, information about it is both public and easily obtainable. You can visit the Yearhour offices on the 5th floor at 89 New Bond Street in London W1S 1DA. Designated LLP members of Yearhour since September 23, 2008, are Roger Harry Daltrey http://www.whorunsit.org/appointees/01571136 and Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend http://www.whorunsit.org/appointees/02056751

Once again-this is of shoddy quality. It was taken from an internet broadcast and is on something called Passport. It's been passed around a few times. Pixelon was bogus as it turned out-the whole show was a scam-a bogus KISS DVD they had nothing to with also came out from this show for sale adding to the dubious nature of anything associated from this gig including The Who.
This one might be slightly more legit than the Immortal release which is not and is just a straight dub from VHS. Just read a few reviews on Amazon and it will tell you all you need to know.
P.S.
I would like to add that as far as copyrights and such, I am no expert so if you go digging up these things and finding signings and such, go for it and I could easily be wrong on certain things and you could be right.
Of course, we also know that many things of substandard quality from artists through the years have been released (i.e. the Stones "Metamorphosis" album) but it doesn't mean the artists wanted these things out there or that the items were of good quality.
So, I don't mind if you want to keep questioning these things, but it's going to bog this thread down. I'm just not going to comment any further than this because I want to keep the peace!

I saw them in Camden as well. It was a phenomenal show. I still remember it quite well.

Supposedly a good part of the Woodstock recording got screwed up during the process and doesn't even exist. If it's halfway listenable though, I'd say to put it out. The precedent has been set with the 1969 London Coliseum recording which also had several mintues screwed up due to technical issues. It's not the greatest live recording, but it's listenable and a great piece of the band's history, not to mention a great performance.

Enough with the filler! Get to Endless Wire already!

The thing is that this is an era when formerly completist Who collectors needed to take a good, hard look at exactly what they did and did not want to collect. Suddenly one had to consider product such as::

1. Greatest Hits titles--At least the Who seem to have given up on sticking genuinely rare tracks on these, but a new, superfluous Who best-of still pops up every couple of years or so.
2. The Encore Series--over a hundred live shows from the 00's have been made available on CD, and a bunch of those were also available on DVD. The Who also created expensive boxed sets collecting every available show from a particular tour. Apparently these are not CD-R's, either. But my obsession-comulsive tendencies have limits.
3. "The Blues To The Bush". I resisted picking this up for a long time until an Ebay seller put a pair up for sale and included a bunch of photos of the discs themselves. At its essence, BTTB was a total of 20 songs taken from four shows in November and December of 1999. They are CD-R's, but the packaging is decent--genuine artifacts more than anything else. The music is interesting in that the Who played some stuff they hadn't played in years--"The Real Me", "Getting In Tune"--but the listening experience is marred by a moment of slience inserted between each track. Still, a bunch of people (who have otherwise not accepted "The Encore Series") have included BTTB on their Who discographies, which finally convcinced me to track a copy down. What's even more interesting about BTTB is that after http://www.musicmaker.com folded in the wake of Napster's rise, they were sued by the Danish company who sold them the rights for defaulting on their final payments--turns out that Musicmaker paid an advance of $2.5 million dollars for ten years of exclusive internet rights to these twenty Who songs.
4. Downloads: During the early to mid 00's, Pete Townshend had his own website. When http://www.thewho.com launched in 2007, PT's personal site shut down forever--with the exception of http://www.eelpie.com/ which still appears to be open for business. But at some point subsequent to the demise of the Musictoday deal, Pete began posting free MP3's of live Who performances from the 2000 tour on a blog that remained online for quite some time. A total of 20 downloads were finally offered, although two of the files were merely extracted solos by Entwistle and Rabbit Bundrick. The question is--do these count as part of the Who's official catalog? As they seem to have been forgotten, the answer would seem to be "no"--yet the counterargument is that Pete Townshend himself provided these to the fans, which is quite a stamp of approval. All I know is, I downloaded them, I have them, I don't really listen to them, but I've kept them.

As far as this era of the Who goes, I have mixed feelings--I like that they went and tried different songs from their catalog, but at times I find myself wincing--Roger scat-singing during an extended "My Generation" jam, for example. Still, Entwistle was playing as incredibly as ever. For me, one of the Who's most electrifying live sets would come in 2001, which I'm assuming is next...

I did not know that. The is a bootleg out there of the complete show, but I believe it is sourced from a mono soundboard feed, not multi-track tape like some of the other Tommy-era shows that ciculate. Do you know what portion of the show was screwed up?

I know I'm a broken record on this, but it just mystifies me that they do not do something similar with the remaining unreleased Moon-era shows. Are they holding them back for some reason? Are there legal issues that prevent release?

I would guess it's a little of Column A and a little of Column B. The Beatles were able to negotiate rights to their 60's stuff from outside sources, because they knew it would wind up on an album and video series that would no doubt sell millions and earn them a hefty advance. The Stones have also pioneered the idea of bringing in a co-sponsor to keep prices down--right now they're able to offer downloads of complete vintage shows because A--the own the material outright, and B--they've signed up Google to underwrite the series in exchange for Google using the Stones to launch their cloud service (or whatever it is)--just as the Stones enlisted Best Buy to underwrite those two DVD sets a few years back, and just as the Stones enlisted Jovan as the first-ever tour sponsor back in 1981.

When the Who finally released a significant amount of Moon-era live material in 2007, they charged $50 for it. Some might say that in doing so, they merely opend the door for fans to redistribute the material amngst themselves for far less, but arguably, the Who were only following the business model established by the bootleggers: Charge as much as you can for it up front, because it's inevitably going to be re-bootlegged. Indeed, after three years, not only did "View From A Backstage Pass" go OOP, but the Who then allowed some material from the set to show up on official MCA product. (This is my interpretation of the whole VFABP thing--obviously I'm only guessing, but it still strikes me as a sound business model, whether or not it was the Who's intention.)

So I'm guessing that part of it is strategic--in surfing the web for financial matters relating to the Who, I'm seeing how by keeping material in the vaults, a company can claim assets the value of which can subsequently be "amortized" by an official release.

Part of it is legal/licensing--there's an amazing video of a 1975 show in Houstan that can be found online, of great historical interest, but what is its fair market value, in light of the fact that: A. performance-wise, it may not be consistent, B: the audio, even on the master, is likely of limited quality, and C: it is widely available for free? Middlemen tend to dilute the profits, and the profit margin on a title such as this would seem extremely narrow with a middleman involved.

Part of it is probably lack of market interest--I would guess that the days of the Who getting a $2.5 million dollar advance for the internet rights to twenty live 1999 songs performances--while still maintaining their retail rights--are long gone.

Finally--and I hate to say it, as it is liable to cause waves--but the era of file-sharing has caused recorded music to suffer a dramatic loss in value--maybe not the billions of dollars claimed by the RIAA, but enough to significantly alter the cost-benefit analysis associated with issuing a series of previously unreleased Moon-era material.

It seems like the obvious solution would be to sell old shows as lossless downloads. That way there's no production or distribution costs, and no worries about unsold product, so sales can be much lower but still profitable. Sure, the stuff would wind up being vulnerable to torrenting, but no more so than physical product is. Earning something from your assets is better than making nothing. Like the two 1973 shows streaming on Wolfgang's Vault... how does it benefit the Who not to allow Wolfgang to sell downloads? WV already has the structure in place... the Who wouldn't have to do anything except collect their percentage.

Heh-heh.