Rediscovery.

Every now and then, I’ll revisit something that was a great love of mine in younger years.

Friday, the mail held two of the latest things to pop up in my Netflix queue. One of the flicks was The Kids Are Alright which surprisingly enough, I had never seen, although I considered myself a fan of The Who.


It was one of those things I just never got around to. I knew about the film but, I’d seen The Who live and didn’t really think I would get a lot out of another concert movie. Also, I hadn’t realized there was a bit of controversy surrounding the film:

In 2003 a DVD edition of the film was released. The film had been transferred from the restored 35mm negative and the audio was extensively restored. In addition to the original film, the DVD contained a bonus disc with over 3 hours of additional materials including a new interview with Roger Daltrey conducted by the DVD’s Associate Producer Martin Lewis. There was also an audio commentary track with Lewis, film director Jeff Stein and producer John Alberian. The DVD was released by Pioneer Home Entertainment. The digitally-restored version of the film was premiered at the New York Film Festival in October 2003 with Daltrey, Lewis, Stein and Alberian in attendance.

Well, I don’t know what appeared in theaters but, to my understanding it was a shorter, edited version and while the DVD version is a bit long, I will say I was just absolutely floored by the audio not to mention as concert films go it is extremely entertaining.

There are a few other pieces of trivia interesting to rock fans. One performance in the movie was enough to prevent another film from being released! Apparently The Who were so spectacular in their takes of A Quick One (getting better with each performance of which there were three) that the Rolling Stones (Mick Jagger) decided not to let Rock and Roll Circus see the light of day.

The Stones contended that they withheld its release due to their substandard performance because they had taken the stage early in the morning and were exhausted. Many others contend that the real reason for not releasing the video was that The Who, who were fresh off a concert tour, upstaged the Stones on their own production. The Stones had not toured in a while and were not in top playing condition, as the Who were.

Watching the performance, you can see why. It’s one of the great rock performances ever. I’ve embedded a YouTube video of it but, the quality doesn’t do the performance justice and you should check the DVD out.



The other thing of note is the story behind A Quick One, the suite of songs Townshend penned and The Who’s first (albeit mini) rock opera. You hear a lot about The Beatles making the first concept album with Sgt Pepper but, the release of A Quick One precedes Sgt Pepper by six months.