The Who at Kilburn: 1977 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

The Who at Kilburn: 1977 Blu-ray Movie Review

A once-lost concert, now found on Blu-ray.

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater February 18, 2010

“The one thing that disgusts me about The Who,” Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder once opined, “is the way they smashed through every door in the uncharted hallway of rock ‘n’ roll without leaving much more than some debris for the rest of us to lay claim to.” And it’s true. If you look back at the history of rock as a kind of family tree, The Who diverge from the trunk of rhythm and blues and sit at the base of a sizeable limb that branches out in a myriad of twiggy genres. The group’s early mod period would eventually inspire 1990s Britpop bands like Oasis and Blur. The stuttered growls of “My Generation,” along with The Who’s destructive on-stage attitude—splintering guitars and blowing up drum kits—bled into the then nascent punk scene pioneered by The Clash, The Ramones, and The Stooges. Guitarist Pete Townshend even coined the term “power pop” in a 1967 interview to describe The Who’s aggressively melodic sound, which everyone from The Knack to Cheap Trick to Weezer would borrow and tweak. And, of course, where would the concept of the concept album be without Tommy, the first so-called rock opera? It’s not enough to call The Who influential; they’re nigh inescapable as rock ‘n’ roll progenitors.

The Pete Townshend shuffle...

Like most legendary artists, The Who’s history is filled with almost mythical moments: Townshend smashing his first guitar in 1964, an act that would become a staple of the band’s live shows, drummer Keith Moon detonating his drum kit on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour—easily one of rock ‘n’ roll’s top ten most defining spectacles—and the band’s raucous appearances at Woodstock and the Monterey Pop Festival. Another piece of Who-vian lore is the long-lost concert footage of their show at the Gaumont State Theatre in Kilburn, North London, on December 15th 1977. Shot with six 35mm cameras and recorded onto 16-track, the concert was intended to be featured in Jeff Stein’s documentary The Kids Are Alright. For whatever reason—it was rumored the band was unhappy with their performance—the footage was scrapped, except for a few snippets, and the reels of film sat in The Who’s vault for 30-some years. The closest fans could get to this fabled show—notable for being the band’s first live appearance in over a year and drummer Keith Moon’s penultimate concert before his untimely death by overdose—were low-quality bootlegs of the audio. The Who: Kilburn ’77, then, is like a musical cryptoantiquitist’s dream find, a rock ‘n’ roll Holy Grail on par with discovering a recording of The Beatles’ first practice session. (Well, okay, maybe not that monumental.) Seen for the first time—in glorious high definition and with a lossless audio track that’s surprisingly robust—the concert finds the band, if not quite at the height of their powers as rock gods, still towering musical deities capable of putting on an electrifying show.

Admittedly, the band does sound a little rough around the edges for the first two thirds of the set, and Townshend even forgets how to play parts of “I'm Free” and “Tommy’s Holiday Camp.” In fact, after this last song, he turns to the crowd, almost royally pissed off, and says, “Well, this wasn’t f—king even worth filming.” The thing is, the angrier he gets, the more passionately he plays, and the more magnetic of a stage personality he becomes. During “My Wife,” he accidentally bashes himself in the head with his Les Paul and later knocks the top off of one of his amps—seriously freaking out a backstage guitar tech—but it’s all fuel for his internal fire. He’s a restless presence, sliding on his knees across the stage, vaulting erratically into the air with off- time scissor kicks, and pulling out his signature move—the arcing windmill strum—on nearly every chorus. With the exception of bassist John Entwistle, who cuts a stoic, almost unmoving figure throughout, the rest of the band is just as manic and uninhibited, performing on the outside edge of control. Keith Moon, apocryphal inspiration for The Muppets’ wild-eyed drummer Animal, bounces his sticks off his tom-toms, sending them twirling skyward. So what if he doesn’t catch them; he just picks a new set out of a nearby sheath and goes at it again, laying down endless drum fills and splashing the cymbals with abandon. He’s not as precise here as he was in the 1960s—and it’s more than a little creepy when he jokes about going backstage to “O.D.”—but he’s a bundle of ADHD energy. Likewise, frontman Roger Daltrey leaps and howls like a werewolf shot by a silver bullet, craning his head toward the ceiling to belt out the higher notes.

It takes them a few songs to find their groove, but by the time they get to their cover of “Summertime Blues,” the band is locked in and feeling confident enough to embark on some extended instrumental jams, with Townshend’s solos atonally wailing, like a precursor to Sonic Youth’s feedback-driven freakouts. The last six songs of the set are particularly excellent, especially the closer, “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” which erupts unexpectedly into a laser show while Daltrey twirls his microphone on its cord like a lasso and Townshend spins his guitar up into the air, letting it fall where it may. The Who: Kilburn ’77 is undoubtedly important as a historical rock ‘n’ roll artifact—with Moon’s death imminent, it shows the band at the end of an era—but it’s also a wildly entertaining show by any estimation. While it’s probably not the best place for newcomers to start exploring The Who’s body of work, this is an absolute must-have release for longtime fans of the band, who will feel like they’ve just unearthed a time capsule.

Track List:
1. I Can't Explain
2. Substitute
3. Baba O'Riley
4. My Wife
5. Behind Blue Eyes
6. Dreaming From the Waist
7. Pinball Wizard
8. I'm Free
9. Tommy's Holiday Camp
10. Summertime Blues
11. Shakin' All Over
12. My Generation
13. Join Together
14. Who Are You
15. Won't Get Fooled Again

The Who at Kilburn: 1977 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Considering that this 35mm footage has been lying around in a vault for over thirty years, the concert's 1080i/AVC-encoded transfer looks great, and comes to Blu-ray with a minimum of wear and tear. Aside from the expected smattering of white specks on the print, there are no stains or scratches or tears to be found. Grain is ample and thick, and yes, the image is quite soft at times, but taking its age into account and the fact that the concert was shot under normal stage lights, The Who: Kilburn '77 holds up remarkably well. While longer shots look somewhat indistinct at times, close-ups display an appreciable amount of detail for a concert film of this vintage. Contrast is surprisingly strong thanks to some fairly inky black levels, and all of the colors— from the multi-hued stage lights to denim blues to the purple of Moon's ridiculously gaudy shirt—are weighty and natural. Just as importantly, compression-related problems are largely absent, besides some brief banding and pixilation, mostly occurring in the gradients surrounding the strong lighting. Given the conditions, I can't imagine the film looking much better.

Do note that as it was nearly impossible to capture screenshots at 1080i, all of the shots in this review were captured at 720p and do not represent the full visual quality of this disc.

The Who at Kilburn: 1977 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Who fans will also be surprised by the fidelity of the concert's audio. Stay away, if you can, from the dull Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, but the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and Linear PCM 2.0 tracks are both excellent. I actually found that while the 5.1 mix has the benefit of featuring crowd sounds in the rears, along with some bleeding ambience from the music, I prefer the 2.0 mix, which seems tighter and cleaner, with slightly boosted vocals. That said, either option is a great choice. In both mixes, there's a nice separation between sounds. Entwistle's bass is panned to the left, Townshend's guitar takes up the right, Daltrey's vocals sing from the center, and Moon's drumming is given almost equal weight throughout. There's plenty of low-end heft—hear the overdriven bass in "My Generation"—and lots of definition in higher sounds, like the synthesizer arpeggios that open "Baba O'Riley." The standout here is Townshend's guitar tones, which squeal, crunch, and ring out with vibrancy and power. If I have one complaint—well, two actually—it's that the vocals could stand to be a hair higher in the mix, and that the mics on Moon's drums aren't all that sensitive. There are times when he does a drum fill, but the space between the snare hits and the thud of the floor tom is conspicuously quiet. Still, given the age of the source material, the mix is impressively dynamic.

The Who at Kilburn: 1977 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Who at the Coliseum 1969 (1080i, 1:12:53)
As if one concert wasn't enough, the disc also includes a show that features the band at the real height of their powers at an opera house in 1969. Unfortunately, as it was filmed on 16mm under pretty terrible lighting conditions, the show isn't nearly as presentable as the Kilburn concert—it's muddy, dark, and soft throughout—and so Image Entertainment has wisely tucked it away in the bonus features. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track fares better than the visuals, but only by a bit, lacking the definition and clarity of the 1977 concert.

Track List:
1. Heaven and Hell
2. I Can't Explain
3. Fortune Teller
4. Tattoo
5. Young Man Blues
6. A Quick One While He's Away
7. Happy Jack
8. I'm A Boy
9. There's A Doctor
10. Go To The Mirror
11. I'm Free
12. Tommy's Holiday Camp
13. See Me, Feel Me
14. Summertime Blues
15. Shakin' All Over
16. My Generation

"A Quick One While He's Away" and "Tommy" (SD, 1:10:37)
The disc also includes the complete performances of mini-opera "A Quick One While He's Away" and full-on rock-opera "Tommy" from the 1969 Coliseum performance, though the conditions of the concert have left much of the footage unusable. I'll let these notes, which appear before the performance, explain:

"Although the Coliseum concert film includes the best material in terms of lighting quality and coverage that could be taken from the night's performance, The Who's declared purpose in selecting Opera House venues was to showcase their two conceptual pieces, "Tommy" and "A Quick One." They played them right through as a whole, without a break, an innovative step in live rock.

Out of respect for this powerful piece of music history the following excerpts present the complete performances of the mini opera "A Quick One" and the classic rock opera "Tommy" as they were originally performed live that magical night at the Coliseum. Each piece is carefully set up by Pete Townhend, so we will not presume to add to his amusing and fascinating introductions.

The lighting goes in and out of full coverage and in order to maintain continuity with the music performance, stylized footage has been inserted in the few places where the film went black or there were missing camera reels. Also, during the song "Christmas" from "Tommy," a technician knocked one of the microphones, causing a slight problem with the audio, which is rectified within two minutes."

The Who at Kilburn Trailer (SD, 1:32)

The Who at Kilburn: 1977 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you're a fan of The Who, I can't think of any reason not to own this fantastic release, which gathers together two of the band's live shows—spaced almost exactly 8 years apart—and presents them in the highest quality possible considering the source material. The long-lost 1977 Kilburn concert is the real allure, though, a buried treasure that aficionados have been seeking for years. Recommended.