The Who's Who

I have always thought that The Who’s Live at Leeds Album was a very special album. Most people who have listened to it would actually agree with me. Theunis Bates wrote an article entitled “6 Live Albums that Rock”, and one of those 6 Albums that he wrote about is Live at Leeds. He says in his article that “Live at Leeds sees the band morph their early mod hits into bare-chested, hairy rock anthems. A young Daltrey hollers and screams through My Generation and Substitute, while Townshend smashes out the chords and drummer Keith Moon stamps over everything. With Live at Leeds, the Who set the standard for every live rock album that followed.” I find this particularly interesting, because he would suggest that Live at Leeds wasn’t only a great album, but it also influenced all the live albums that followed it. That would make Live at Leeds not only a really cool album, but an influential album that shaped the way live rock and roll was heard .

Another interesting thing I found in an article about the album was that the show was played to a relatively small audience. In fact Andy Kershaw said that, “It was on 14 February 1970 that the band recorded their landmark Live at Leeds album in the hallowed 2,000-capacity Refectory….” The reason I find this interesting was that I assumed the Who would have played to a much lager audience than 2000 for there live album. The only thing about this particular album is that it dose not say why they played to such a small audience, but I would have to speculate that maybe it had something to do with to much crowd noise showing up on the tapes, but I really don’t know for sure.

Probably the most interesting article I found would have to be and article in “Rolling Stone” by Pat Blashill. In his article he (like Theunis) suggested that Live at Leeds was also a revolutionary album. He wrote that “There's no finesse, just the pure power of a band able to play as loud as it wants to. When the Who blew up Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues" to Godzilla-like proportions, they invented Seventies arena rock.” This would again suggest that The Who with Live at Leeds helped to shape the future of live Rock and Roll. He also said in his article that “Rather than wade through eighty hours of American shows for a live album, Pete Townshend claimed he burned those tapes "in a huge bonfire" and selected a concert at Leeds University in England.” I find this very interesting because it would suggest that The Who were ether to lazy to sort through all those tapes or they were very confident in there live performances to the point were they would risk a one show live album. Ether way it relly shows that The Who were a very daring, revolutionary band.

Work Sited

Andy Kershaw. . "Live and kicking at Leeds. " New Statesman  26 Jun 2006: 8. Research
Library. ProQuest.  Davidson County community Collage Library.  6 May.
2009 

Pat Blashill, Anthony DeCurtis, Ben Edmonds, Gavin Edwards, et al. "Live at Leeds:
The Who. "  Rolling Stone  11 Dec. 2003: 136. Research Library. ProQuest. 
Davidson County community Collage Library.  6 May.
2009 

THEUNIS BATES. . "6 LIVE ALBUMS THAT ROCK. " Time International
18 Dec. 2006: 70. Research Library. ProQuest. .  Davidson County community
Collage Library.  6 May. 2009 http://www.proquest.com/