Live Concerts of "The Who" Recommendations ?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by WildHoneyPie, Oct 7, 2019.

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  1. WildHoneyPie

    WildHoneyPie Here's a autobiographical song for ya Thread Starter

    Location:
    England
    I've been getting into a lot of The Who's live material recently with listening to Live At Leeds/Hull, Woodstock and Swansea 1976.

    Has anyone got any recommendations on any other Who concerts I should check out? I'd say my favourite concert I've listened to is Swansea, they all sound so damn good on that show.
     
  2. entropyfan

    entropyfan Forum Resident

    Nothing beats the Fall 1969 soundboard tapes - some of those performances are more spirited than Leeds.
     
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  3. Bocajoe

    Bocajoe Forum Resident

    Echo that one, Fall 1969 SBDs are required listening. Not much from 1971 is of even listenable quality, but there some that sound decent; the best ones are Oval Cricket Ground, Phoenix, Long Beach, CA, and Dayton, OH. The the Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Berlin and Frankfurt shows from Europe in 1972 that circulate are all very good audience recordings. The 1973 shows to get are the soundboards/FM broadcasts of Philadelphia and Landover (sometimes referred to as Largo.) Charlton Football Ground from May 1974 is available as a BBC broadcast and is stellar. At least one of the six MSG shows is VG/EX sounding. Now, here's where it gets good - there are quite a few shows from 76-76 that are STELLAR audience recordings, plus the official video of Houston. Look for Springfield, MA, Kansas City, MO from 75 and Landover MSG, Seattle, and Toronto from '76 (Toronto was Moon's last public performance with The Who; there were two more after that, but those weren't open to the public and filmed for The Kids are Alright; you can find the Kilburn Theater 1977 on an official DVD release.) There are others, but those are the best, IMHO. Then you have to FF to 1979, when a group of tapers, called JEMS recorded the entire December 79 tour; the recordings are in mono but all sound incredible. If you can track down a boot called "Garden Party," that will give you an excellent stereo audience recording of MSG from 9/16/79. There is a SUPER RARE soundboard of the Chicago show; most of the circulating soundboards are sourced from the video and aren't what you would expect from that source. Kind of muddy, if you ask me. Anyway, the boot is called 'The Who Must Change." Good luck finding it. 1980 is hit and miss. 1981 is PAINFULLY under-represented in quality recordings, Essen from March 28 is an FM broadcast; the other circulating shows are average audience recordings, which is a shame because Pete really wanted to explore improvisation during this tour and the result is some really unique playing, although the rest of the band hated that kind of playing. Most of 82 circulates in excellent quality. Now, let's rewind a bit. What about pre-Tommy? The Fillmore East 1968 show is available officially, and sadly, anything pre-1968, sans a gig as The High Numbers in 64, is as hard to find as hen's teeth.
     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2019
  4. Herman Schultz

    Herman Schultz Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York City
    Which ones are out there? I've heard "Shakin' All Over" from Amsterdam, and that absolutely kills. Definitely superior to Leeds. I have Ottawa from the super deluxe Tommy, but haven't listened to it, yet.

    For the OP, get the Live at Kilburn '77 set. It's great, but it also comes with a bonus disc of the 1969 London Coliseum show. That is incredible. Live in Texas '75 ain't too shabby, either, although it has some horribly annoying and dated video effects.
     
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  5. SurrealCereal

    SurrealCereal Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    I really like the Isle of Wight 1970 performance. IMO, it has the best officially released version of Tommy.
     
  6. The Lone Cadaver

    The Lone Cadaver Bass & Keys Cadaver

    Location:
    Bronx
    My favorite from Philly & Largo '73.
    [​IMG]
     
    texron, PageLesPaul, J_D__ and 7 others like this.
  7. davmar77

    davmar77 I'd rather be drummin'...

    Location:
    clifton park,ny
    The recently released 68 fillmore east set is a killer. A great example of the pre Tommy who.
     
  8. Bocajoe

    Bocajoe Forum Resident

    This is the text file that I got with the download:

    THE WHO
    The Fall 1969 Soundboard Tapes
    Vol. 1-5
    Newly Restored & Remastered 2016 [Prof. Stoned]


    This collection consists of direct-to-stereo soundboard recordings that were made for possible inclusion on a live album during The Who's 2nd American tour of 1969. The tapes ended up being rejected in favor of what became Live at Leeds. Pete Townshend drastically tried to prevent the 1969 tapes from being bootlegged by destroying them, but some of the material eventually did find its way into circulation, albeit scattered over various poorly compiled/mastered bootlegs and with very little documentation to accompany them.

    Every single circulating recording from this tour has been included here with the exception of officially released material. Furthermore, the best available sources have been selected, the speed of all recordings has been corrected and everything has been newly mastered for optimal sonic consistency. A lot of the dates remain a mystery and probably always will, unless previously uncirculated recordings of this tour show up.

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Vol. 1 - State University of N.Y.

    01. Heaven and Hell
    02. Can't Explain
    03. Fortune Teller
    04. Overture
    05. It's a Boy
    06. 1921
    07. Amazing Journey
    08. Sparks (tape drags within)
    09. Summertime Blues
    10. Shakin' All Over
    11. My Generation
    bonus:
    12. Young Man Blues

    Time: 50m03s
    Tr. 01-02, 09-11: unknown place/date*
    Tr. 03: unknown place/date
    Tr. 04-08: State University of New York, Stony brook, NY - October 18, 1969
    Tr. 12: unknown place/date

    *has been labeled as "McDonough Gymnasium, Georgetown University, Washington D.C. - November 2, 1969"

    Note: Sourced from "Wintertime trip" and "Pure Rock Theatre". Unlike the 2006 version, the Tommy section has now been put in the middle. I have some doubts whether Tr. 01-02 and 09-11 are actually from the same show, nor have I ever seen convincing evidence that either one of these sections were recorded in D.C. This assumption seems to have arisen from Townshend's comment before the last song: "Before we go back to England, we'd just like to say; why don't all you ****ers who wanted to cause trouble, and that includes the cops, why didn't you go to Washington, because this is a rock 'n' roll concert". Why advice someone to go to Washington D.C., when you are already there?! Furthermore, it would be another 2 weeks (and 13 shows) before the band was supposed to go back to England. My uneducated guess is that this section comes from one of the last four shows of this tour (three of which were in the State N.Y.). Tr. 03 does not belong with the so-called "Georgetown" sections. I just put it there on the 2006 version and have decided to let it stay.

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Vol. 2 - Capitol Theater

    01. Heaven and Hell
    02. Can't Explain
    03. Fortune Teller
    04. Tattoo
    05. Young Man Blues
    06. I'm Free (0m34s, cuts in)
    07. Tommy's Holiday Camp
    08. We're Not Gonna Take It
    09. Summertime Blues
    10. Shakin' All Over

    Time: 41m57s

    Tr. 01-05: Capitol Theater, Ottawa - October 15, 1969 (1st Set)
    Tr. 06-10: unknown place/date

    Note: Sourced from "Pure Rock Theatre" except for two tracks which appear in slightly cleaner quality on "Wintertime trip". There is some tape warbling on Tr. 01 & 10 and some of the tracks are faded abruptly. I remedied this by flying in some audience response from a different source to maintain the feel of a live-show. The majority of the Tommy section of this show was officially released in 2013 on the Super Deluxe Boxset version of Tommy, none of which had previously circulated on ROIO or bootleg.

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Vol. 3 - Fillmore East

    01. Jerry Pompili Introduction
    02. Heaven and Hell
    03. Can't Explain
    04. Fortune Teller
    05. Young Man Blues
    06. Overture
    07. It's a Boy
    08. 1921
    09. Amazing Journey (fragment missing within)
    10. Sparks
    11. Eyesight to the Blind
    12. We're Not Gonna Take It (1m29s, cuts in)
    13. Summertime Blues
    14. Shakin' All Over

    Time: 50m26s

    Tr. 01-11: Fillmore East, New York, NY - October 22, 1969
    Tr. 12-14: unknown date, assumed to be from the same venue

    Note: The Who played 8 shows in 6 days at the Fillmore East Theatre from Monday Oct. 20 to Saturday Oct. 25, 1969. Tr. 01-11 were recorded during one of these shows for sure, most likely the third one on Oct. 22, if we go by the remarks Pete makes after Fortune Teller: ("See, we don't play the same thing every night", "Every night the same amplifier is always blown up during the solo of the first song" & "We have only done three shows so far").We can faintly hear Pete have a tantrum over the malfunctioning amplifier after the first song, so this show should probably be counted as one of those three. The announcer has often been mistaken to be the late Bill Graham (legendary promotor, not the TV preacher), but the voice actually belongs to Jerry Pompili, an associate of Graham's.
    Sourced from "Accept No Substitute" & "Wintertime Trip". The latter only has a part of the Tommy section from the Fillmore shows and was sourced from a tape with better fidelity. Tr. 12-14 might be from another night. This section runs slower than the rest on the "Accept No Substitute" and there's no sign of the buzzing in John's amp which can be heard between interludes on the first part. Also, there is a 50 second fragment of an unidentified version of "Amazing Journey" on "Accept No Substitute" between Tr. 11 & 12 (not included here) which doesn't match with Tr. 09 or the versions from 1969/10/15, 1969/10/18 & 1969/10/19.

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Vol. 4 - Electric Factory

    01. Heaven and Hell (1m40s, cuts in)
    02. Can't Explain
    03. Overture
    04. It's a Boy
    05. 1921
    06. Amazing Journey
    07. Sparks
    08. Acid Queen (2m41s, cuts off)
    09. Summertime Blues
    10. My Generation
    bonus:
    11. Fortune Teller
    12. Young Man Blues

    Time: 49m02s

    Tr. 01-10: Electric Factory, Philadelphia, PA - October 19, 1969
    Tr. 11-12: unknown place/date

    Note: Tracks 01-10 are sourced from "Electric Factory 1969". The recording is marred (or enhanced, depending on your perspective) somewhat by a technical malfunction; the sound of the guitar distorts whenever it is turned up on the P.A. and at the very end of the recording we can hear an English guy mutter "****ing P.A., bad up here". The Who played two shows at 4pm and 8pm. This portion is sourced from the late show. Tr. 11 & 12 were compiled from "Who is Tommy?" & "Live at Leeds Rejects"; the latter source has superior sound but misses the first 21 seconds of Tr. 12 plus the lengthy announcement by Pete.

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Vol. 5 - Acetates

    01. Heaven And Hell
    02. Can't Explain
    03. Fortune Teller
    04. Tattoo
    05. Young Man Blues
    06. Summertime Blues
    07. Shakin' All Over
    bonus:
    08. My Generation

    Time: 46m28s

    Tr. 01-10: unknown place/date

    Note: As mentioned below, these tracks all originate from the reference acetates that were made by Damon Lyon-Shaw at IBC studios in Jan. 1970. Tr. 01-05 & 06-07 are likely from 2 different nights. All are sourced from "Live at Leeds Rejects". Tr. 08 is of lesser audio quality and comes from "Who is Tommy". There were two needle skips on this track which I repaired by patching the missing fragments in from "1969 Autumn Acetates", along with the last 5 minutes of this song. Funny enough, this ROIO does not have the skips even though it clearly originates from the same scratchy acetate.

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Some Lo-Fi Extra's

    01. Can't Explain
    02. Fortune Teller
    03. Young Man Blues
    04. My Generation (6m59s, cuts off)

    Time: 20m02s

    Tr. 01-04: unknown place/date (Tr. 4 was reported to be from one of the Fillmore shows)

    Note: More from the acetates. All are sourced from "Who is Tommy" except for the last track which was taken from an unknown tape source. There is a small fragment missing on Tr. 02 due to a needle skip, which appears on the "1969 Autumn Acetates" version as well, so I remedied it somewhat by replacing it with a piece from earlier in the song. Tr. 03 is the same version as on Vol. 1 but appears in stereo here. I suspect Tr. 01-02 (and possibly 03 as well) are from the same show as Tr. 06-07 from Vol. 5.

    ==================================================================================

    Audio sources:

    - Accept No Substitute (CD, Big 011, 1992)
    Sourced from tape of unknown generation (I suspect 3rd or 4th) and runs a bit slow.

    - Who is Tommy? (2CD, Dynamite Studio, DS94-A077, 1993)
    Sourced from acetate recordings dubbed to tape of unknown generation. Quality not too great and quite a few skips and surface noise from the acetates.

    - Pure Rock Theatre (CD, Hiwatt ZA59, 1996)
    Quite clean sound on the 1969 tracks which implies a low generation tape source but digital noise reduction was used heavy handedly during the mastering process, which mostly affects the quieter spots. Runs slightly off-speed.

    - Wintertime Trip (CD, Dandelion DL 112, 1999)
    Again quite a clean source with a wealth of great material, but this too suffers slightly from a digital noise reduction treatment. Most of the material is off-speed.

    - Electric Factory 1969 (CD, NightHawk NH-02013, 2002)
    A pretty clean source without noise reduction. Runs off-speed.

    - Live at Leeds Rejects (CD, Jack Of Hearts JOH 3, 2003)
    A slightly off-speed source but in great quality. Presumably sourced from acetate but no audible skips or surface noise.

    - 1969 Autumn Acetates ROIO
    Low-fi compilation sourced from a 2nd generation cassette.

    ==================================================================================

    Recording Setup/History:

    All 33 shows of The Who's 2nd North-American tour in 1969 were recorded directly to stereo on a Vortexion tape recorder by the band's long-serving (and long-suffering) live-soundengineer Bob Pridden. Pete Townshend had hoped to compile a live-album from these tapes, as had been requested by American record-company Decca. The setup was very simple: Pridden used the mono P.A. mix (heard within the center of the stereo panorama) and supplemented it with two strategically placed mics on the stage which picked up the guitar, bass and drums in stereo. Pridden adjusted the balance on-the-fly and the overall results were quite decent. Townshend was pleased with the quality when he got to hear some of the tapes during the tour.

    After the tour, Townshend asked Pridden to review the recordings. Shortly after Christmas 1969, when the two met up again to discuss the project, it turned out that Pridden had listened to all the tapes but had neglected to make notes and was unable to give directions on what material he deemed useable for release. Another 7 British shows had been added to the pile at this point and Townshend did not feel like wadding through 70+ hours of concert footage. So he told the soundengineer to hire a mobile recording unit to record two dates in February 1970 instead. When asked what to do with the 1969 stereo tapes, Townshend ordered all of them to be destroyed. Pridden dutifully burned all reels in a bonfire in his garden and kept only or two tapes in his archive.
    However, this was not before 2 master reels of selected material were prepared on January 6, 1970 by Damon Lyon-Shaw (resident engineer at I.B.C. Studios). A tapesheet of the first reel as pictured in the "Anyway Anyhow Anywhere" book by Andy Neill & Matt Kent can be seen below. The tracks on Reel #1 were: "Young Man Blues" #1 "Can't Explain" "Fortune Teller" "Young Man Blues" #2 "Summertime Blues" "Shakin' All Over" "Tattoo" & "My Generation"^.

    The main reason why Pete Townshend had wanted the tapes destroyed was fear of bootlegging. Such was his paranoia, that he made a point of warning Pridden that if the tapes were ever to be bootlegged, the soundengineer would be held responsible. Townshend came to regret his decision later on and even called it one of his greatest mistakes in his autobiography. The ultimate irony in this story is that some of the material did eventually find its way to bootleggers over two decades later. Most likely, these fragments originated from tape copies made in late 69/early 70 when the tapes were being reviewed. The band and Bob Pridden seemed to have no prior knowledge of the existence of these recordings.
    In 2013, the band finally released a portion of one of their surviving tapes officially on the "Tommy" Super Deluxe Edition. The fact that the producers failed to find any versions of the last three Tommy tracks from the Fall 1969 tour to round out the disc, makes it seem like indeed almost nothing from the 40 recorded shows has survived in the official Who archives*.


    ^ (This might very well be the material that can be heard on Vol. 5, even though there's no sign of "Heaven and Hell". "Young Man Blues" #1 could be the version on Vol. 4. Whatever the case, a number of recordings were mastered to acetate, including a couple of alternative versions of the same tracks, among them the bonus tracks on Vol. 01+04, Tr. 01+02 of "Some Lo-Fi Extra's" and the version of "Fortune Teller" on Vol. 4.)
    * (among these was the Coliseum, London show from December 14, 1969 which had been filmed by Kit Lambert & Chris Stamp and was eventually issued in full on DVD as a bonus to the 1977 Kilburn show. The soundtrack seems to exist in lo-fi mono only. The film footage itself was also nearly thrown out until Jeff Stein saved it from a garbage can at the Track Records headquarters in the late 70's.)

    ==================================================================================

    It has been 10 years since I first started this series. As you may know, Vol. 4+5 did not get completed at the time, even though the first 3 volumes were (and continue to be) quite popular. All three ended up being professionally bootlegged on various CD's and Vol. 1 even made it to some lavishly packaged colored vinyl release in 2013 (no, I did not buy it.)

    So why revisit this now? Quite frankly; I felt the mastering work on the 2006 volumes could be improved upon. But that's not the only reason; the requests to finish the series never really stopped and there was still some great material left that I had received from a few helpful people. Luckily, I kept my notes from 2006 which made it a lot easier to complete Vol. 4+5. I pieced Vol. 1-3 together again from scratch, rather than using the original unmastered files and this has led to some new insights which helped improving the overall quality.

    Enjoy,
    PS
    Oct. 2016

    ==================================================================================

    All original recordings made by Bob Pridden.

    Research, Notes & Sound Engineering by Prof. Stoned, Sept. /Oct. 2016

    Information & additional audio sources provided by Howard, Everett, Joe, Roland, Tim, Luke.

    Special thanks to C.G. Whitman, whose research inspired this series.

    ==================================================================================

    Lineage/Mastering note:

    SDB > ? > Silver bootleg CD* > EAC > WAV > Mastering > FLAC (lvl 8, SBE aligned)

    * with the exception of Electric Factory which was sourced from a 1st generation securely burned CDR.

    Mastering was done using Cubase 5, using Universal Audio Hardware (See: Precision Mastering Bundle | UAD Audio Plugins | Universal Audio ).
    Playback on PMC IB2s monitors.
     
  9. kiff

    kiff Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    From official releases, one not yet mentioned is the 69 Ottawa show on the Tommy super deluxe. It's much earlier in the tour than others and a little rougher but damn good.
     
    Herman Schultz likes this.
  10. J_D__

    J_D__ Senior Member

    Location:
    Huntersville, NC
    The audio source is weakest sounding of all the officially released material. I go with 1969 Ottawa if you download the incorrect and missing Tommy songs.
     
  11. Brian Lux

    Brian Lux One in the Crowd

    Location:
    Placerville, CA
    Some of the recommendations here sound great. I hope some of them end up on vinyl!
     
  12. WildHoneyPie

    WildHoneyPie Here's a autobiographical song for ya Thread Starter

    Location:
    England
    Thanks for the show choices guys, I've been listening to bits from some of the good sounding 1976 tapes and wow,they are great in both sound and the shows themselves, Boston 1976 comes to mind. Roger sounds way more confident singing the Tommy songs now which suits songs like "The Acid Queen" and "I'm Free" and also I don't understand the claims that Keith was sloppy on this tour because to my ears he sounds great.
     
  13. J_D__

    J_D__ Senior Member

    Location:
    Huntersville, NC
    Many fans and John thought the 1975-76 shows were the bands best shows. I don’t hear that as there was almost no jamming and the more complex songs like Drowned and Bargain were dropped from the set list.
     
  14. Two Sheds

    Two Sheds Sha La La La Lee

    Fillmore East - 1968. Definitely check that one out.
     
  15. Grampire

    Grampire Forum Resident

    Location:
    29 Palms
    [​IMG]
     
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  16. jhw59

    jhw59 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Rehoboth Beach DE.
    Yes but isn't that the release they partially patched with Swansea 76? A jarring change to say the least.
     
  17. WildHoneyPie

    WildHoneyPie Here's a autobiographical song for ya Thread Starter

    Location:
    England
    I think they added the true last two Ottawa tracks as a digital download on their website. I think they were replaced by Swansea tapes due to The Who archives not having that portion of the tape available to them. I don't know why they couldn't of replaced Swansea's versions with any other 1969 versions they had.
     
  18. whodanny

    whodanny The Who ! THAT'S WHO !!

    I have a CD of two shows in Sweden (Stockholm I think) from 1966. I don't have it to hand at the moment, but there are a few interesting songs, "So Sad About Us" is one. Unfortunately the sound quality doesn't merit repeated listening, but it's interesting as an "historical" or reference recording. Will have a look and post the details/track list shortly.

    Edit to add: There is of course the '67 Monterey set officially available, but I've never been too fond of that. The band were using borrowed equipment, not their own more powerful gear.
     
  19. Ram4

    Ram4 Lookin' good

    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    You could almost hear Pete screaming at Bob to burn everything. Such a rash decision, but that could be Pete when he got mad.
     
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  20. whodanny

    whodanny The Who ! THAT'S WHO !!

    That was quick !! The CD was closer to hand than I thought.
    The Details of the Sweden '66 Cd are as follows.

    Grona Lund, Stockholm, 2nd Jun 1966
    1. Heatwave.
    2. Dancing In The Street
    3. Barbara Ann
    4. Daddy Rolling Stone/Uptight
    5. A Legal Matter
    6. Substitute
    7. My Generation.

    Club Nalen, Stockholm, 25th October 1966

    8. Heatwave
    9. Dancing In The Street
    10. Barbara Ann
    11. So Sad About Us
    12. Substitute
    13. The Kids Are Alright
    14. I'm A Boy
    15. My Generation.

    The Album I have is just called "The Who-Live In Sweden"

    I believe it's out there under other names too. And probably available to download if you know where to find it. As I say, not great quality, but an interesting document of that Who period.
     
  21. Herman Schultz

    Herman Schultz Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York City
    For latter day, post-Entwistle Who, both the 2002 Live at Boston show and the 2004 Isle of Wight show are superb. Pete's guitar sounds fantastic on both. Roger sounds particularly good on the latter show.
     
  22. PrineHootieWho2000

    PrineHootieWho2000 Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    2006 has some good ones. I have Dallas & St. Paul and those were both worth the pick (because I was headed to see them live). 2006 is SUPERB quality as far as audio goes.
     
  23. jhw59

    jhw59 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Rehoboth Beach DE.
    Some quality 2000 shows circulate. There were a bunch of sb mp3 from 2000 on the Who site for a while that were quite good. A good friend compiled them and sent them to me.
     
    Ere likes this.
  24. Ere

    Ere Senior Member

    Location:
    The Silver Spring
    West Palm Beach from the 2000 tour is very good, as is the Dec. 1999 Shepard's Bush gig. For 1975, the Dec. show from Toronto is spectacular.
     
  25. kevin5brown

    kevin5brown Analog or bust.

    This is awesome, thanks for posting that info! :D
     
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