Search - Who :: Greatest Hits Live

Awesome, but Flawed

Statman | Little Rock, AR USA | 03/23/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The idea of releasing a collection of best live performances by the greatest live band in history is a great idea. However, this is the Who's Greatest Hits Live, which is not quite the same thing as "greatest live hits". The album contains songs representing 20 of the Who's 33 singles which charted in either the US or the UK. "Baba O'Riley" was released as a single, but apparently failed to chart, despite later becoming an FM radio staple and among the band's most popular songs. "A Man in a Purple Dress", from the Who's most recent album, Endless Wire,is the only song not released as a single. The first 12 tracks of disc 1 are terrific and are reasonably representative of the Who in concert during the seventies. And most of these 12 performances are not commonly available on previous commercial releases. However, the particular recordings seem to have been selected primarily based on time constraints, rather than attempting to select particularly exceptional performances or genuinely rare recordings. Perhaps the best performance is "Naked Eye", which only counts as a "hit" because a few lines from "Let's See Action" and "My Generation" are added at the end. This medley is absolutely terrific, with Townshend's guitar assault on full display. However, the version on the "Live at the Isle of Wight" festival may be better. "I'm Free" is an excellent performance, but the listener may be left wondering what happened when the recording is abruptly truncated. The 1965 BBC recording of "My Generation" is also excellent, but sounds completely out of place on a disc where all other tracks were recorded in concert in the 70s. Disc 2 is very good, although you have to wonder why in the world five tracks recorded on their 1989 tour were included. The Who's 1989 tour was much better than many critics gave them credit for, but there is no doubt that these tracks sound out of place here. Pete Townshend's crashing guitar playing is absent from these recordings. Townshend played mostly acoustic guitar on this tour, with the sound filled out by nine backing musicians and three backing singers. One or two tracks from the 1989 tour would have fit into this compilation nicely, by five makes the difference from their other live material much to noticeable. The last four tracks, recorded this century, are again excellent, but not necessarily their best recent performances. Oddly, there is not a single track from the Kenney Jones era (1979-1985) of the band. Kenney Jones may not have been Keith Moon, or even Zak Starkey, but he is an excellent drummer and the Who had plenty of excellent performances during this period. Also, most Who fans will already have the website-only release View From a Backstage Pass, which includes two discs of Keith Moon era (recorded 1969-1976) live recordings, including all 12 in concert recordings on disc 1 of this collection. View From a Backstage Pass is a considerably better collection, even if it contains none of their more recent performances. And neither album compares to the Live at Leeds deluxe edition (or to Live at the Isle of Wight). But Greatest Hits Live is an excellent, if flawed, and highly enjoyable listen on its own."

William

William DiMarco | 03/31/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I'm a life-long Who fan (as I'm sure many others here are). I have seen them in concert five times (all post-Keith Moon) & have all the live commercial releases plus the stuff available on-line from the tours of the last 10 years. I also have the "Live From A Backstage Pass" from the fan club. That said, this "Greatest Hits Live" was a pleasant surprise. The first 11 songs were all previously available on "Backstage Pass", 'Magic Bus' is from "Live At Leeds", 'My Generation' is from "BBC Sessions" & 'I Can See For Miles' & 'Love Reign O'er Me' are from "Join Together" (The song 'Join Together' is from a different show on the CD of the same name). All the others are previously unreleased commercially. I think it's a good overall collection. Listen, anyone can nitpick about "Greatest Hits Live" or The Who in general for a lot of things. No, it's not "Live At Leeds". So what. Unless there's something still in the archives, you're not gonna get that again. That's why "Backstage Pass" is so good (all Moon-era material). I would advise any big fan to get it (no, I'm just a member in [...] website). If there's anything negative to say about "Greatest Hits Live", perhaps they could've put more on the 2 CDs, but you never know how those decisions are made. In addition, there's no Kenney Jones-era stuff on there. I know some folks can't stand that period or the 1989 tour material included here for that matter, but there were some good moments during those times & it's part of their history, like it or not. Moon isn't coming back (or John Entwistle either now). But these 22 songs are fine on their own merits, 1 CD of Moon, & 1 CD of post-Moon (& a couple of songs post-Entwistle). As stated, I have a lot of live Who material & I thought that "Greatest Hits Live" held its own well against a lot of them."

Better than nothing but so much could have been worked with

Walsh | Detroit area, Michigan USA | 03/28/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I guess whoever picked the selections (Pete? Roger and Pete? Record company?) maybe felt the selections were what they liked to hear or what they thought fans may like.



Too much time on here was wasted with songs from the 1989 tour. In 1996 they did all of Quadrophenia for The Prince's Trust Concert. Selected songs of it were shown on HBO due to other artists and time. I'd love to hear versions from that show on this album, or hell, please release that whole show somehow! (The HBO songs are on Youtube and sadly The Who's own Quadrophenia Live DVD is from NYC)Roger's version there of Love Reign O'er Me stoled the show. Their whole performance did, at least what HBO showed me of it. I just wonder if they don't want anything to do with Gary Glitter since his legal troubles with child abuse a few years ago. He was a special guest on the 96-97 tour playing the leader of The Rockers.



I can't figure out why they chose a version of Eminence Front from 2009 instead of the mid 80's when it was fresh and John was still alive.



I guess it's cool that they gave a 2002 version of The Kids Are Alright instead of recycling the 2000 Royal Albert Hall version.



And while I'm ranting about what should be included on live stuff, I wish Pete would release ALL of his Deep End Live show too from back in 85 or 86. You can also find several songs not on that CD on Youtube. Apparently it was a pay-per-view or taped for video. As with The Prince's Trust 96 show, David Gilmour of Pink Floyd joins in the fun playing guitar, as well as singing Love on the Air.



But isn't that a sad irony? You can find cool, rare, deep cuts on tons of stuff for FREE on Youtube compared to what is officially released that they want you to pay for!"