Post by Ineedanewname on Aug 21, 2004 15:04:34 GMT
Reviewed by Jeff McNeal
October 8, 2001
In what Pete Townshend described as their final concert performance "for a little awhile", THE WHO capped off a six month U.S. and U.K tour with a slam-bang finale at the famed Royal Albert Hall. Raisingfunds to build special hospital wings to accomodate teens battling cancer, this concert featured guest appearances from Bryan Adams, Noel Gallagher from Oasis, Kelly Jones (Stereophonics), Kennedy, Paul Weller and Peal Jam frontman Eddie Vedder. Joining the 3 original founding members of Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle on stage for every number were John "Rabbit" Bundrick on keyboards and Zak Starkey on the drums. Ringo's son totally blew me out of the water, far exceeding the talents of his old man on his best day. I hadn't really examined the jacket before popping in the DVD and admittedly, I was familiar with Zak Starkey by name only -- I'd never seen him before or heard him play. But throughout the concert, I kept thinking to myself "I want to hear a solo from this guy". unfortunately, that never came to pass, but it's hard to feel deprived when you see the incredible amount of energy that's required to keep up the blistering pace for these aging English rockers, who can still run circles around the best of any contemporary artists today. When the credits rolled and I discovered who was playing the drums, it was quite a revelation.
The last WHO disc I reviewed was their Isle of Wight concert performance that took place in 1970 -- and it was marvelous. How would they perform today? As it turns out, very, very well indeed.
Though past the point of smashing their instruments on stage (in this sense they've mellowed with maturity), the passion and energy of their live performance appears unabated in any fashion. Townshend continues
to attack his guitar like a hungry animal, ripping into chords and including his trademark "windmill" riff to the delight of the huge crowd that assembled for the November 27, 2000 concert.
John Entwistle's furious fingers seem to float over the strings of his bass, his outstanding solo during 5:15 enhanced by a small camera mounted to the neck of his instrument. A rock 'n roll virtuoso, his fingers danced across those strings so fast that it was hard to
imagine that he was actually playing.
Roger Daltrey is somewhat magical, in that when he's off stage giving interviews, he looks every bit his age, but when he's performing, the years melt away and he appears as youthful, energetic and charismatic
as always. He was in good voice, with only a time or two when he seemed to be straining to hit the heights of his range.
Image Entertainment serves up solid value with this two disc set, which contains both DD 5.1 and DTS 5.1 tracks, along with Dolby stereo. The first disc contains the whopping 144-minute concert (that's nearly two and a half hours, folks!) and the second disc contains a short documentary explaining the Teenage Cancer Trust, plus rehearsal footage with the various guest artists. The content on the second disc is all fairly short in duration. I doubt there's much more than a half-hour of material there.
One of the elements included on the second disc is a "multi-angle" version of Pinball Wizard which wasn't what I was expecting, but pleasant once I figured out how to work it.
There are eight windows within a bordered area, each depicting a difference camera angle. All but one are quite small. The largest takes up slightly more than 1/4 of the total screen area. By using your angle button on your DVD player, you can determine which view
will occupy the larger area of the display. It's cool, but I would have preferred the authors to utilize the entire screen area so that the selected view could be larger.
Of all the guests, my personal favorite was Noel Gallagher's contribution on "Won't Get Fooled Again", but all the guests artists did a nice job With Oasis' Kelly Jones deserving of a special mention for his rousing vocals on "Substitute". Though technically very good,
Bryan Adams seemed the least at ease, but then again, if I were asked to sing Daltrey's signature "Behind Blue Eyes" standing five feet from the man, I know that I wouldn't be able to croak out the lyrics to save my life.
The variety of music contained here in 23 cuts is very satisfying. While I've always admired THE WHO from a distance, I must confess that other than their "greatest hits" compilation, I've not owned any of their other albums or CD's. There were naturally a lot of titles
contained here that didn't make it onto the "hits" disc, and although I thought that I might skip past the unfamiliar tunes, I couldn't bring myself to touch that remote. As it turns out, some of the songs
that I thought I didn't know, I had only forgotten, or never knew the name to begin with. I also discovered some new material that I found I enjoyed quite a bit, including a song that was written in 1974 [sic 1972] about a concept that has essentially come to fruition by way of the Internet called "Relay".
Highlights for me, began with Pinball Wizard, in which I was involuntarily subjected to goosebumps for nearly the entire song. A funked-up version of Magic Bus was interesting, but really caught fire when Roger Daltrey began wailing on the harmonica. People tend to
forget that Daltrey can do a lot more than sing. He plays the guitar in a few sets, but man, does he whomp on that harmonica!
It felt strange to hear Pete Townshend announce "You Better You Bet" from 1979 [sic 1981] as being "the last" chart hit single for The Who, particularly since it doesn't represent one of their best in my opinion, but I guess he's right.
You want to know what I really dig about THE WHO though? Not only has their raw, working-class musical style withstood the test of time, but Daltrey and Townshend in particular seem to have maintained their
dedication to promoting a better understanding of young people and the unique problems they face as they struggle to find out who they are and where they fit into the world. The irony is that the young people
they seek to help are the children of their second or even third generation of fans.
Though evolving and aging as human beings, they've held fast to their ideals, which is a hard thing to do when you reach the level of success and fame that THE WHO has. A word of caution for those contemplating turning their kids on to THE WHO. There's some explicit
language.
It was hard to follow some of the comments that were being made by Pete Townshend in particular throughout, but the phrase "F___ Off!" came in loud and clear more than once. Subtitled lyrics would have
sure been nice, but they're not included.
IMAGE
This is one of the very few concert DVD's that earns our highest honors for video quality. While on the low end of the highest rating, there are enough qualities about the transfer which put it over the top. The images are clear enough to observe the pores in the hands of
John Bundrick on the keyboard, the ripples in the brass cymbals on Zak Starkey's drum set, and a small mole on the cheek of Pete Townshend.
This is a lavishly photographed concert, with spectacular lighting that never bleeds, but features rich, deep colors that swirl and dance in shafts of the overhead spotlights. The editing of the concert footage is nearly as frenetic and energized as the performance itself.
There are few moments when the camera is in one place for any more than five seconds at a time, yet these cuts aren't distracting or disjointed, but rather they piece the action together nicely, as if we had the ability to move our attention throughout the stage.
It's so nice to see more and more concerts emerging that were filmed with the DVD format in mind -- aka widescreen and anamorphic. If you dig The Who, then you'll love this disc and feel even better in knowing that a chunk of the proceeds from the sale of the DVDs are
going to a worthwhile charity.
SOUND
When the concert first begins with "I Can't Explain", the mix sounded overly compressed and almost one-dimensional to me -- and very, very LOUD, which is really the only way to listen to THE WHO. I was
initially disappointed with the apparent lack of depth, but as the concert progressed and my ears adjusted to what I was hearing, the entire soundstage seemed to gradually open up. Sort of like a garden snail that gets poked in the eye and retreats into the shell, only to
gradually emerge and experience the liberation of being outside.
Sonically, the audio is solid with a clean low end and shimmering highs. My frequency analyzer revealed a wall of sound extending from 25Hz to 16kHz. Channel separation is not however, one of the concert's strong suits. At least in the sense that the rear speakers
in the 5.1 mix seem to be reserved for ambient echo from the stage and
audience cheers. This will probably delight true concert purists who know darn well that the background vocals aren't supposed to come from the back of the room.
In other words, there's no attempt to "enhance" the concert experience, merely to capture it. When it comes to THE WHO, that'll do just fine, thank you.
www.thebigpicturedvd.com/cgi-bin/master/viewer.cgi/The_Who_amp_Special_Guests_Live_At_The_Royal_Albert_Hall
October 8, 2001
In what Pete Townshend described as their final concert performance "for a little awhile", THE WHO capped off a six month U.S. and U.K tour with a slam-bang finale at the famed Royal Albert Hall. Raisingfunds to build special hospital wings to accomodate teens battling cancer, this concert featured guest appearances from Bryan Adams, Noel Gallagher from Oasis, Kelly Jones (Stereophonics), Kennedy, Paul Weller and Peal Jam frontman Eddie Vedder. Joining the 3 original founding members of Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle on stage for every number were John "Rabbit" Bundrick on keyboards and Zak Starkey on the drums. Ringo's son totally blew me out of the water, far exceeding the talents of his old man on his best day. I hadn't really examined the jacket before popping in the DVD and admittedly, I was familiar with Zak Starkey by name only -- I'd never seen him before or heard him play. But throughout the concert, I kept thinking to myself "I want to hear a solo from this guy". unfortunately, that never came to pass, but it's hard to feel deprived when you see the incredible amount of energy that's required to keep up the blistering pace for these aging English rockers, who can still run circles around the best of any contemporary artists today. When the credits rolled and I discovered who was playing the drums, it was quite a revelation.
The last WHO disc I reviewed was their Isle of Wight concert performance that took place in 1970 -- and it was marvelous. How would they perform today? As it turns out, very, very well indeed.
Though past the point of smashing their instruments on stage (in this sense they've mellowed with maturity), the passion and energy of their live performance appears unabated in any fashion. Townshend continues
to attack his guitar like a hungry animal, ripping into chords and including his trademark "windmill" riff to the delight of the huge crowd that assembled for the November 27, 2000 concert.
John Entwistle's furious fingers seem to float over the strings of his bass, his outstanding solo during 5:15 enhanced by a small camera mounted to the neck of his instrument. A rock 'n roll virtuoso, his fingers danced across those strings so fast that it was hard to
imagine that he was actually playing.
Roger Daltrey is somewhat magical, in that when he's off stage giving interviews, he looks every bit his age, but when he's performing, the years melt away and he appears as youthful, energetic and charismatic
as always. He was in good voice, with only a time or two when he seemed to be straining to hit the heights of his range.
Image Entertainment serves up solid value with this two disc set, which contains both DD 5.1 and DTS 5.1 tracks, along with Dolby stereo. The first disc contains the whopping 144-minute concert (that's nearly two and a half hours, folks!) and the second disc contains a short documentary explaining the Teenage Cancer Trust, plus rehearsal footage with the various guest artists. The content on the second disc is all fairly short in duration. I doubt there's much more than a half-hour of material there.
One of the elements included on the second disc is a "multi-angle" version of Pinball Wizard which wasn't what I was expecting, but pleasant once I figured out how to work it.
There are eight windows within a bordered area, each depicting a difference camera angle. All but one are quite small. The largest takes up slightly more than 1/4 of the total screen area. By using your angle button on your DVD player, you can determine which view
will occupy the larger area of the display. It's cool, but I would have preferred the authors to utilize the entire screen area so that the selected view could be larger.
Of all the guests, my personal favorite was Noel Gallagher's contribution on "Won't Get Fooled Again", but all the guests artists did a nice job With Oasis' Kelly Jones deserving of a special mention for his rousing vocals on "Substitute". Though technically very good,
Bryan Adams seemed the least at ease, but then again, if I were asked to sing Daltrey's signature "Behind Blue Eyes" standing five feet from the man, I know that I wouldn't be able to croak out the lyrics to save my life.
The variety of music contained here in 23 cuts is very satisfying. While I've always admired THE WHO from a distance, I must confess that other than their "greatest hits" compilation, I've not owned any of their other albums or CD's. There were naturally a lot of titles
contained here that didn't make it onto the "hits" disc, and although I thought that I might skip past the unfamiliar tunes, I couldn't bring myself to touch that remote. As it turns out, some of the songs
that I thought I didn't know, I had only forgotten, or never knew the name to begin with. I also discovered some new material that I found I enjoyed quite a bit, including a song that was written in 1974 [sic 1972] about a concept that has essentially come to fruition by way of the Internet called "Relay".
Highlights for me, began with Pinball Wizard, in which I was involuntarily subjected to goosebumps for nearly the entire song. A funked-up version of Magic Bus was interesting, but really caught fire when Roger Daltrey began wailing on the harmonica. People tend to
forget that Daltrey can do a lot more than sing. He plays the guitar in a few sets, but man, does he whomp on that harmonica!
It felt strange to hear Pete Townshend announce "You Better You Bet" from 1979 [sic 1981] as being "the last" chart hit single for The Who, particularly since it doesn't represent one of their best in my opinion, but I guess he's right.
You want to know what I really dig about THE WHO though? Not only has their raw, working-class musical style withstood the test of time, but Daltrey and Townshend in particular seem to have maintained their
dedication to promoting a better understanding of young people and the unique problems they face as they struggle to find out who they are and where they fit into the world. The irony is that the young people
they seek to help are the children of their second or even third generation of fans.
Though evolving and aging as human beings, they've held fast to their ideals, which is a hard thing to do when you reach the level of success and fame that THE WHO has. A word of caution for those contemplating turning their kids on to THE WHO. There's some explicit
language.
It was hard to follow some of the comments that were being made by Pete Townshend in particular throughout, but the phrase "F___ Off!" came in loud and clear more than once. Subtitled lyrics would have
sure been nice, but they're not included.
IMAGE
This is one of the very few concert DVD's that earns our highest honors for video quality. While on the low end of the highest rating, there are enough qualities about the transfer which put it over the top. The images are clear enough to observe the pores in the hands of
John Bundrick on the keyboard, the ripples in the brass cymbals on Zak Starkey's drum set, and a small mole on the cheek of Pete Townshend.
This is a lavishly photographed concert, with spectacular lighting that never bleeds, but features rich, deep colors that swirl and dance in shafts of the overhead spotlights. The editing of the concert footage is nearly as frenetic and energized as the performance itself.
There are few moments when the camera is in one place for any more than five seconds at a time, yet these cuts aren't distracting or disjointed, but rather they piece the action together nicely, as if we had the ability to move our attention throughout the stage.
It's so nice to see more and more concerts emerging that were filmed with the DVD format in mind -- aka widescreen and anamorphic. If you dig The Who, then you'll love this disc and feel even better in knowing that a chunk of the proceeds from the sale of the DVDs are
going to a worthwhile charity.
SOUND
When the concert first begins with "I Can't Explain", the mix sounded overly compressed and almost one-dimensional to me -- and very, very LOUD, which is really the only way to listen to THE WHO. I was
initially disappointed with the apparent lack of depth, but as the concert progressed and my ears adjusted to what I was hearing, the entire soundstage seemed to gradually open up. Sort of like a garden snail that gets poked in the eye and retreats into the shell, only to
gradually emerge and experience the liberation of being outside.
Sonically, the audio is solid with a clean low end and shimmering highs. My frequency analyzer revealed a wall of sound extending from 25Hz to 16kHz. Channel separation is not however, one of the concert's strong suits. At least in the sense that the rear speakers
in the 5.1 mix seem to be reserved for ambient echo from the stage and
audience cheers. This will probably delight true concert purists who know darn well that the background vocals aren't supposed to come from the back of the room.
In other words, there's no attempt to "enhance" the concert experience, merely to capture it. When it comes to THE WHO, that'll do just fine, thank you.
www.thebigpicturedvd.com/cgi-bin/master/viewer.cgi/The_Who_amp_Special_Guests_Live_At_The_Royal_Albert_Hall