The Who: Live At Shea Stadium 1982 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		2.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

The Who: Live At Shea Stadium 1982 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 2, 2015

When Keith Moon died on September 7, 1978 from a seemingly intentional (prescription) drug overdose (ominously at the same London location where Mama Cass Elliot had perished some years previously), many at the time thought that The Who would fold up shop and move on to some kind of other careers. Against considerable odds, the band decided to continue touring, and within just a couple of months erstwhile Faces drummer Kenney Jones had joined the supergroup, in a perhaps futile attempt to “replace” Moon. The fit was shaky at best, and Roger Daltrey for one has not been overly shy at suggesting it wasn’t much of a fit. Perhaps due to those simmering tensions, the 1982 tour from which The Who Live at Shea Stadium was culled was advertised as a farewell offering. Four years with Jones on drums had at least let the band settle into a dependable groove of professionalism, but what this concert (from the second of two nights at Shea Stadium) proves is just how energetic The Who was during this era.

The Rolling Stones often get a lot of attention for their perceived antics on stage, but watching The Who Live at Shea Stadium offers ample evidence that these particular boys were not exactly slouches at commanding the rapt ardor of their fans. Daltrey is almost like a feral beast at various points throughout this concert, leaping, jumping, crawling, and offering what amounts to a display of gymnastics. If Pete Townshend, John Entwistle, Tim Gorman and Jones are relatively more subdued, at times it’s only in incremental amounts.

This was a somewhat roiling period for The Who, not necessarily confined to any personal dissatisfactions with Jones. Quadrophenia and The Kids Are Alright had helped cement the concept of the band as multimedia artists that had begun in 1975 with Ken Russell’s film of Tommy. Also on the “plus” side of things was the very album The Who was in support of on this tour, It’s Hard, an effort which would climb into the Top 10, even if it failed to produce a really strong hit single (“Eminence Front” stalled at a relatively unspectacular 68 on the Hot 100). But the fact that It’s Hard turned out to be the last Who album for an almost unimaginable period of time perhaps hints at some of the “minus” qualities the band was dealing with at this time, including lingering emotional repercussions from the tragic death of several fans at a Who concert in Cincinnatti in December 1979.

Despite what hindsight may provide in terms of “context” for this concert, when taken on its face it’s an absolutely riveting piece of theatricality, even if the silly eighties’ styles (and stage effects) seriously date it. The music, however, is timeless, and a nicely wide range of tunes demonstrates that The Who consistently gave one of the most awe inspiring live shows available during this period. There’s an almost palpable electricity running through a lot of these performances. The boys give a musical nod to a former supergroup’s “invasion” of Shea Stadium, courtesy of blistering renditions of “I Saw Her Standing There” and “Twist and Shout.” Ironically, of course, it was Ringo’s son Zak who ultimately was able to hold down the trap set that Moon once so viciously pummeled.

The band's set list consists of:

• 1. Substitute
• 2. I Can’t Explain
• 3. Dangerous
• 4. Sister Disco
• 5. The Quiet One
• 6. It’s Hard
• 7. Eminence Front
• 8. Behind Blue Eyes
• 9. Baba O’Riley
• 10. I’m One
• 11. The Punk and the Godfather
• 12. Drowned
• 13. Tattoo
• 14. Cry If You Want
• 15. Who Are You
• 16. Pinball Wizard
• 17. See Me Feel Me
• 18. Love Reign O’er Me
• 19. Long Live Rock
• 20. Won’t Get Fooled Again
• 21. Young Man Blues
• 22. Naked Eye
• 23. I Saw Her Standing There
• 24. Summertime Blues
• 25. Twist And Shout

The Who: Live At Shea Stadium 1982 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Who Live at Shea Stadium is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eagle Vision, an imprint of Eagle Rock Enterprises, with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.40:1. Though it may be masked slightly by the blue of the flag on the cover art, this is in fact one of Eagle Rock's so- called SD Blu-rays, an upconvert from (in this case at least) some inherently problematic standard definition video sources. The center of the image tends to be rather "squishy" at times, looking almost like it's beset with good old fashioned tracking problems, or at least like it's shimmering in some sort of quasi- mirage. This anomaly is especially noticeable in long shots, where the already blobby and blurry band members tend to waft back and forth as if behind a heat wave. Stage lighting adds some sickly yellow tones to a lot of the footage, further depleting already anemic levels of detail. There are other slight video anomalies like minor fringing and ghosting that crop up from time to time. Black levels are generally very deep, however, and contrast is also generally consistent throughout the presentation.

The Who: Live At Shea Stadium 1982 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

No such problems attend either of the tracks featured on this Blu-ray, a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track and an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 stereo offering. The 5.1 track is significantly more spacious sounding than the stereo iteration, with a much better representation of the band's sometimes massed mid- and lower range voicings. Despite this uptick in lower frequencies, Daltrey's soaring vocals are only very intermittently compromised in the overall mix. The stereo mix presents a much narrower accounting of the music, but prioritization may appeal to some listeners a bit more in this version. Both tracks offer sterling fidelity and wide dynamic range.

The Who: Live At Shea Stadium 1982 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Bonus Tracks (1080i; 19:20) feature alternate versions of the following tunes from the first night of the concert:

  Substitute

  I Can't Explain

  My Generation

  A Man is a Man

  5:15

Note: This disc refused to load on my PC drive equipped with PowerDVD. PowerDVD kept going into a loop where it thought it needed an update (which it didn't), at which point it would spit me back out to the black "Play" screen. I typically utilize my PC drive to check resolution of supplementary material. I am assuming these supplements are 1080i due to bitrates and Eagle Rock's long standing precedents on previous SD Blu-rays they've released.

The Who: Live At Shea Stadium 1982 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Who Live at Shea Stadium is an incredible historical document that offers a look at a band on the verge of disbanding (at least for a little while), but still able to generate awesome amounts of energy while losing little in the way of nuance. Vocally and instrumentally the band is in top form here, marauding through an extremely long and satisfying set list. As with many of the other Eagle Rock SD Blu-rays, video quality here is fairly problematic, and so this may best be accepted as an "audio Blu-ray" with a lackluster video component. With that understanding in mind, The Who Live at Shea Stadium comes Recommended.