THE WHO AT KILBURN: 1977

I knew about this Kilburn concert (the first DVD in this package) because I read about it in a book about The Who written by journalist Chris Welch. This concert was done and filmed with the aim to include some footage from it in "The Kids Are Alright" documentary film which was also done during that period (1977-78) by Jeff Stein. But unfortunately, the members of the band were not very satisfied with their performances in that concert (particularly Peter Townshend, who even shows some dislike from the band`s playing during the concert). At the same time, maybe it was a good idea to not release this video until recently because the modern technology which is available now maybe helped a lot to improve the sound and image of this concert video which is very good. But, I think that at the same time the band had at that time some real reasons to not include footage from this concert (apart from two very brief scenes when the band was not playing) in "The Kids Are Alright" film: they sound like they didn`t rehearse enough. Particularly Keith Moon`s playing shows some "doubts" in some places, like he really was having a hard time remembering how to play some songs. Also, his playing began showing the effects of the excesses in his lifestyle and the lack of practicing. In fact, this was the bands`first concert since mid 1976, and Moon was living in the U.S. then until the band called him to return to England to record the "Who Are You" album in late 1977. Another reason to not release this concert video in the seventies maybe was that they were a bit drunk while playing (I can see it!). But the performances of most songs are good, sometimes noisy and chaotic. Anyway, this is a very good concert video which shows the band playing with a lot of energy. They even played a bit of the "Who Are You" album title song in a somewhat improvised form (as I mentioned above, they were recording the "Who Are You" album then until mid 1978). To replace the live footage from the Kilburn concert in the "The Kids Are Alright" film, they played and filmed another concert in May 1978 at a film studio inviting (like in the Kilburn concert) some fans. The "The Kids Are Alright" film is a good film but most of the songs included in the original film (including the songs which were filmed in May 1978) suffer from a bit of high speed in their appearance and sound, and also for this reason the release of this Kilburn footage is much better than that film mostly in the presentation of the live performances. The performance of "My Wife" was the only live recording from the Kilburn concert which the band released in the "The Kids Are Alright" album, but in a bit edited form and with a different sound mixing (but i wasn`t included in that film). Even with all the flaws the Kilburn concert was much better than some of the later concerts which the band played after Moon died (particularly during their "Farewell Tour" in 1982).

The second DVD from this package shows the band playing the "Tommy" rock opera live almost in its entirety in 1969. It seems that some songs were not played for some reason, and the band plays it very well but obviosuly lacking the keyboards and horns which were recorded in the original studio album. The quality of this footage is not very good, sometimes dark, and it lacks in some places the images of the band filmed live and instead they show some still photos from the concert to replace the missing footage. Not as good as the Kilburn concert, but it was a good idea to include this footage in this DVD package as "Bonus Material".