Thursday, July 31, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

CDVS

The Big Two ought to be the Big Three. In mainstream rock annals, the biggest of the big are the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. The conventional wisdom holds that these bands are peerless icons--superior to all the rest, unassailable rock demigods.

Assuming for a moment that such a musical hierarchy should exist, another British band--the Who--should be granted entry into the top echelon. The Who produced a vast and varied body of awesome and challenging music over a 25-year period that, one could argue, actually exceeds the quality output of the Rolling Stones, if not the Beatles. And yet the Who is, for the most part, rarely mentioned in the same breath with the other two.

The Who have not recorded new material for decades, but they have continued to tour, and Live at the Royal Albert Hall, released last week, shows that advanced age has not hampered the band's ability to put on an electrifying rock 'n' roll show. The show was recorded on Nov. 27, 2000, two years before bassist John Entwhistle died in a Las Vegas hotel room. The two-disc set features several guest performers, including Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher and pop rocker Bryan Adams.

Disc one is a solid if unremarkable rendering of Who standards, from "I Can't Explain" to "Pinball Wizard" to "The Kids Are Alright." The one knock is that Roger Daltrey's distinctive voice has not aged well. Not to take anything away from Daltrey, whose contributions to the Who and to rock music generally are prodigious and cemented in history, but his voice is shot. He simply can't hit the notes for which he is most renowned, a fact that leaves disc one just shy of great.

But disc two, which focuses more on the guitar wizardry and songwriting prowess of Pete Townshend, more than makes up for the flaws of the first. On songs like "Drowned" and "So Sad About Us," it's just Pete and his guitar, and the effect is stunning. Disc two also is where the guests chime in to good effect, especially on tracks such as "Getting in Tune," "Behind Blue Eyes" and "Won't Get Fooled Again."

Of course, the Who always has been known as a powerful live act, exemplified by its hard-charging 1970 live album Live at Leeds. Originally released with just six songs, the better-known expanded version consists of 14 tracks from the 1970 show, highlighted by "Summertime Blues," "Magic Bus" and an almost 15-minute rendition of "My Generation," in the middle of which the band segues into Tommy territory with a piece of "See Me, Feel Me" before Townshend tears off on a meandering, introspective guitar solo that exemplifies a musical artist at work.

But where Live at Leeds is an interesting historical artifact, capturing a great rock band near the peak of its career, Live at the Royal Albert Hall is a more eclectic, full-bodied package that does justice to the range and breadth of the Who's catalogue. Peerless indeed.--Geoff Schumacher