Re: LAL

[Shane Matheson <matheso@gaul.csd.uwo.ca>]

On Tue, 19 Mar 1996, Gary M. Gillman wrote:

> by the same band, which, by many accounts, was still a great live act until
> 1982?. Eg. take Who`s Last (with that flat sound and awful crowd noise - as

They may have still been a great band, but they no longer were at the top 
of their form, and they had nothing to prove.  From what I hear, one of the 
reason LaL was released was to show the masses that caught on to Tommy, 
that The Who weren't just about operas, but they could rock it out like 
no one else, which they did quite admirably.  Who's Last has no purpose 
other than to document what was supposed to be the last chapter of The Who.


> it was just pure god given luck that LAL ended up sounding so resonant, pure
> and powerful? Nothing else in the live Who canon touches LAL, I say: take
> all your 1971 SF Bargains, 1969 London Coliseum`s YMB, and even the
> Woodstock performances, and they don`t hold a candle to the original or

This I think is due to the fact that a) they put on a great show and b)
they weren't in a stadium or farmer's field, they were in a gymnasium with
all the echo & ambience that go with a smaller venue.  The other
performances may have been as good or better, but the venues acoustically
left something to be desired.  Same thing with Who's Last, it would've 
probably sounded at least a bit better if it weren't recorded in arenas, 
though that arena sound does more accurately reflect the Who sound of 
'82.  The Stones took the Leeds approach & recorded their last live album 
in a small club even though most people that go to see them need 
binoculars to tell who's who on stage.


> expanded LAL (although careful listening has convinced me that the "new" LAL
> tracks are slightly inferior to the tunes on the original album, thus
> explaining no doubt the original track selection)......... Any thoughts? I`d
> be interested especially in the reactions of some of the younger fans on the

The original tracks are all more powerful than the generally quirky Who
songs that were left off.  We as Who fans may like them (this version of
I'm a Boy & AQO are my favourites) but I don't think the general record
buying public would appreciate them as much, and they would detract
somewhat from the overall power of the original album (though you gain the
continuity of an actual concert on the new Leeds)  The old Leeds was 
called "the gretest live hard rock album" and the new one shows that the 
Who weren't just a one dimensional hard rock band.


Shane Matheson						MechEng/CompSci UWO

	"I smash guitars because I like them. " -- Pete Townshend