The Who: Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 2004 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.5

The Who: Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 2004 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 5, 2017

The Who: Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 has long been considered one of the high points in the live performing career of one of the most legendary live performing careers of any modern rock band. Thinking of The Who returning to the Isle of Wight some 34 years later might give even some diehard fans a moment of pause, for after all, hard living and hard partying rockers sometimes don’t weather the vagaries of time all that well, let alone revisit the site of one of their most iconic concerts. But age has (or at least had, in 2004) been mostly kind to both Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend, who, along with Simon Townshend, Pino Palladino, Zak Starkey and John “Rabbit” Bundrick revisit a (sorry about this) who’s who list of some of the band’s best loved songs. Graced with some really furious guitar work by various members, along with a pretty spry sounding Daltrey, The Who: Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 2004 offers the band in a highly energetic but often rapturously melodic mode.

Who aficionados may remember that the band actually performed at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1969 before their legendary 1970 performance, but as some liner notes in an insert pamphlet document, success actually bred the dissolution of the Festival since so many people were clamoring to attend. The Festival returned in 2002, and two years later one of the acts most associated with its iconic history returned to the stage, albeit sadly without John Entwistle, who had died in June of 2002. This particular concert makes it quite clear that some kind of torch has been passed to the next generation, though, because two of the strongest contributions come from Simon Townshend on guitars and vocals and Zak Starkey on drums.

The Who's set list for the concert is:

• 1. I Can't Explain
• 2. Substitute
• 3. Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere
• 4. Who Are You
• 5. Behind Blue Eyes
• 6. Bargain
• 7. Baba O'Riley
• 8. The Punk and the Godfather
• 9. 5:15
• 10. Love Reign O'er Me
• 11. Eminence Front
• 12. Drowned
• 13. Naked Eye
• 14. Real Good Looking Boy
• 15. You Better You Bet
• 16. My Generation
• 17. Old Red Wine
• 18. Won't Get Fooled Again
• 19. Pinball Wizard
• 20. Amazing Journey
• 21. Sparks
• 22. See Me, Feel Me / Listening to You
• 23. Magic Bus

The Who: Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 2004 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Who: Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 2004 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eagle Vision, an imprint of Eagle Rock Entertainment, and Universal Music Group with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. This is a kind of interesting presentation from a couple of angles, including the almost psychedelic use of extreme close-ups, often achieved with dizzying zooms, but many of which convey really excellent levels of fine detail, at least when stage lighting allows (see screenshot 5 for a close-up bathed in blue which is almost like a hallucination). The other thing that may strike some is how both Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend barely hold still for even a nanosecond through well over two hours of performing (it was in fact almost comically difficult to get decent screenshots of them for this review which didn't have excessive amounts of blur from their rapid movements). The interlaced presentation doesn't always fully support this frenetic activity, and very brief combing artifacts can occasionally be spotted. There's also some brief but noticeable posterizing at play, especially when the cameras are aimed squarely at lighting arrays. Occasional very minor contrast fluctuations occur, some of which tend to cast a slightly purplish quality on the blacks. The concert is well covered by a variety of cameras, and while there are occasional bouts of quick edit-itis, the real movement here is the nonstop activity on the part of the two surviving original Who members.

The Who: Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 2004 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Who: Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 2004 features LPCM 2.0 and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mixes (the disc is authored to default to the stereo track). Both of these tracks offer sterling fidelity, but the 5.1 track really ups the ante in terms of support for some of the massed guitars which can sound just a little dense in the stereo version, as well as providing a much more fulsome low end throughout. The balance between Daltrey and the band, as well as the band "versus" the audience, is largely commendable, and there are some fun phasey effects that accompany some of the guitar solos that sound especially evocative in the surround version. Some songs sure sound like they've been sweetened with studio effects like strings, but maybe their synth patches are just incredibly impressive.

The Who: Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 2004 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There's no supplemental material on the Blu-ray disc, but this package comes with a bonus 2 CD set featuring audio of the concert.

The Who: Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 2004 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Who: Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 2004 is a wonderfully energetic and just downright musical set from The Who, one bolstered by some really gorgeous guitar work and nice vocals from Daltrey, who, if not quite at the plaintive levels of his youth, sounds full blooded and in tune. The boys are a little feisty as well at times, as is evidenced by some kind of funny patter between tunes. Video quality is a tad spotty at times, but audio is top flight and the performances hugely enjoyable. Highly recommended.