[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

THE WHO LIVE - A Book Review



My favorite picture in Ross Halfin's book of collected WHO photos is
a black & white shot of Pete on Page 21.  It shows Pete playing live at
the 1969 Isle Of Wight Festival, head down, grimacing, right hand blurred
in a frenzied strum.  I can almost here the guitar in this picture.  It would
make a great poster.

There are many such photos in this book.  That wonderful WHO noise
practically leaping, like Pete, off the page.  Pictures that make you say
to yourself, "Man, I wish I was at *that* show!"

But there are also a few things about this book that disapponted me.
Ninety percent of the photos are from the mid-1970's & let's face it, that
wasn't The WHO's most beautiful period.  You may feel differently.

Halfin says in his introduction that his reason for using pictures mainly
from the 1970's was that The WHO "were never really a threat until 1969 
onwards, when Townshend's 'don't-fuck-with-me' attitude really came
to the fore."

I believe this to be a somewhat flawed premise from the start.  To mostly
ignore The WHO in the 1960's is to completely disregard a big chunk of 
their history.  And while most photos don't reflect it, we all know Pete went
through a huge period of disillusion in the 1970's.  He didn't always have
that 'don't-fuck-with-me' look on his face.

One of the few examples of pictures from the 1960's used in the book are
a series of three shots on Page 12 which show the band playing outdoors
on an absurdly high stage in Oklahoma in 1968.  The OX is wearing a white,
short-sleeved WHO T-shirt, Daltrey is wearing a thick suede-like, hippy-ish
shirt, tied around the waist (something more akin to Buffalo Springfield than 
The WHO), & Pete is smartly dressed in jeans & a nice button-down.  It's
hard to tell what Moon has on, he's not even visable in the biggest of these
shots.  Looks like he has a T-shirt on.

I bring this up because I gazed at these pictures longer than any others in
the book.  These pictures had a certain freshness & oddness about them
that demanded my attention.  And while most of the pictures from the 1970's
were indeed new to me, only a few struck me as unfamiliar or novel.

Many pictures I had seen before, & while nice, I couldn't help but wonder
why valuable (literally!) space was taken up by photos from MAXIMUM
R&B or elsewhere.

Halfin also lets some of the photographers tell about their experiences taking
pictures of The WHO.  This probably seemed like a good idea at the outset
but few photographers share any new insight into the band besides the oblig-
atory comments about 'incendiary' performances, windmills, & a motionless
OX.

One guy even wastes his space by telling an irrelevant story about turning
down a hit of acid at a WHO show he was shooting & being glad afterwards
because of all the 'bad trips' going on around him.  Quite what this has to do
with The WHO as a live band I don't know.

The photographers' 'essays' should have been left out.  Halfin should've realiz-
ed that the pictures can stand alone.  This 'buffering' seems forced & unnec-
essary.

A few of the photographers actually use some of their time to deride the post-
Moon WHO, especially Robert Ellis, who calls the 1979 Tour 'terrible' & 
The WHO 'limp.'  He goes on:  "It just got worse in the Eighties. I gave up af-
ter that. There was nothing left to photograph, they were like any other band
then."

True or not, these aren't words I want to read in a book about The WHO
I just paid nearly $300 for!  Bad enough Led Zeppelin is mentioned!

Pete, in his foreward, even chides some of these photographers who "seemed
annoyed when the band stopped acting like performing dogs."  It's almost
as if even *he* was shocked at some of the nasty & critic-like comments
from some of these people in this book which purports to capture "the excite-
ment & volatility of their shows."

Halfin claims this book on The WHO "doesn't attempt to tell their story" & 
yet he distorts that story by placing, next to a picture of Keith drumming in 1978, 
a quote (by Ellis again) which reads:
    
    I was not at all surprised about the demise of Moon. I was angry 
    with them for not taking better care of him. They knew he was ir-
    responsible, they knew he was likely to do something silly.

Why crap-statements like this are included in this book is beyond me.

Other oddities are the pictures at the end of the book of Pete's solo perfor-
mance of LIFEHOUSE in March of 2000.  Why were these included?  Like
Brian mentioned, the 1989 tour is conveniently skipped over.  Kenny Jones
is pictured yet sadly, as usual, not even mentioned.

However, I can't really give this book too bad of a grade because it *does* of-
fer tons of never-before-seen pictures.  That alone is sufficient enough to pro-
vide much enjoyment.  The WHO ARE YOU album cover out-takes are
interesting as are unseen photos of Keith's press party at his house Tara in
1971.  I especially like the band shot which has Keith being carried in a gar-
bage can by Pete & Roger.  

The best WHO photo-collection-book is still the mammoth WHO IN SWE-
DEN.  Search for this one if you want truly amazing, fresh pictures of the band 
along with equally interesting & entertaining accounts from fans who got to see 
them play live.  This book will cost you a third of the price of THE WHO LIVE 
yet give you much, much more.

Finally (on a more positive note), THE WHO LIVE is packaged in a neatly-
designed, tough slip-case &, as mentioned, comes with a special gold CD ed-
tion of the LIVE AT LEEDS remaster.  That's nice.

The books are also autographed by Ross Halfin & numbered in a limited edition.  
Mine is # 929.  Imagine how pissed you'd be if you got # 906 or # 516 or some-
thing like that!

Final Grade:  B-


- SCHRADE in Akron