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- Cert:
- Cat.no: IX 0834 MYUKD
- Running time: 144 minutes
- Recorded: November 27th, 2000
- Pressing: 2001
- Region(s): 1, NTSC
- Chapters: 24
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: None
- Widescreen: 16:9 (1.78:1)
- 16:9-enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: No
- Disc Format: 1 * DVD 9, 1 * DVD 5
- Price: £19.99
- Extras: Rehearsal and Backstage Footage, Documentary with Roger DaltreyInterview, Multi-Angle Sequences on “Pinball Wizard”
Director :
- Dick Carruthers
The Band:
- Roger Daltrey (Lead Vocals)
Pete Townshend (Guitar/Vocals)
John Entwistle (Bass Guitar/Vocals)
Zak Starkey (Drums)
John “Rabbit” Bundrick (Keyboards)
WARNING: This review contains a couple of sick jokes. If you are easilyoffended, do not read. No offence is intended or implied.
The Who and Special Guests: Live at the Royal Albert Hall,goes down in history as being the first DVD to make my Playstation 2 crash,just after the end credits have finished. And I thought it was only PC DVDs thatwere allowed to do that?
Recorded on November 27th, 2000 in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust, Daltreyand co. put their walking sticks to one side and get up on stage to belt outthe hits from yesteryear, or rather gasp along in the case of a few songsbecause time has taken its toll on their energy and their voices, the latterto a small but significant degree, but there are a few times when they should’vepassed on a few tracks because they just can’t cut it on those anymore. Examplesinclude My Wife and The Kids Are Alright. And the on the nexttrack Daltrey gets the audience to chant “Magic Bus” instead. Can’t he bebothered?
In fact, from that early on they all sound rather out of puff. Come on guys,it’s a 2½-hour concert you’ve got to get through!
In a bid to boost their efforts though, they bring in famous people. PaulWeller duets with Townshend on So Sad About Us, Pearl Jam’s EddieVedder takes a break from watching his fans crush themselves to death atforeign rock concerts and joins the band for I’m One and Let’s See Action. Then BryanAdams tries to stay on the right side of 40 by screaming out the lyrics toBehind Blue Eyes and Noel Gallagher, brother to the biggest tosserin Manchester, accompanies on Won’t Get Fooled Again. The Stereophonics’Kelly Jones, okay with his own behind before the dire Have a Nice Day,makes mincemeat of Substitute getting the timing and intonation all tocock. Nigel Kennedy‘s in there too somewhere but I didn’t spot him.
Just to prove that they think they can keep in with the in-crowd, the banddrop in a few expletives, which makes me question why music videos can beexempt from a BBFC certificate but films can’t? At one point Pete Townshendtells an audience member to “fuck off”, while Who Are You? becomes, briefly,Who The Fuck Are You? It’s really unnecessary.
All donations can be made to TeenCancer.com.
The full list of tracks included are :
1. I Can’t Explain
2. Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere
3. Pinball Wizard
4. Relay
5. My Wife
6. The Kids Are Alright
7. Bargain
8. Magic Bus
9. Who Are You
10. Baba O’Riley
11. Drowned
12. Heart To Hang Onto13. So Sad About Us
14. I’m One
15. Behind Blue Eyes
16. You Better You Bet
17. The Real Me
18. 5:15
19. Won’t Get Fooled Again
20. Subsitute
21. Let’s See Action
22. My Generation
23. See Me, Feel Me
24. End Credits
God, The Devil and Pete
There are no artifacts on show (good start) and the concert has been shot andpresented in 16:9 anamorphic widescreen (excellent, keep going), but suddenlysomething hits you as soon as the band strike up. Yes, no matter how muchpreparation you’ve put into something, there can still be the spanner in theworks if someone tries what makes a number of BBC and ITV sitcoms even morepainful to watch than they are initially – Blurryvision. Well, that blurryeffect that TV producers use to pretend a TV show, shot on video, has actuallybeen shot on film by removing every other video field. In the end, you get astilted mess that blurs badly whenever there’s frantic movement (in particularwith Townshed playing Drowned on acoustic guitar).
And do you know what’s really annoying about this? It’s because it was addedon in post-production because someone stupid thought it looked good. It wasn’tthere to the thousands watching the concert as it happened and shouldn’t bethere now.
The sound is presented in both Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1, the lattersounding that bit more effervescent. However, it’s not the sort of thing thatscreams multi-directional sound and is let down by the vocal performances of theband.
In the extras dept, the Documentary with Roger Daltrey Interview runsfor nearly 8 minutes and includes a moment on-stage, not shown in the concert,when the band hand over a cheque for a million quid to the cancer trust.The 3-minute rendition of Pinball Wizard, in Dolby Digital 5.1 only, has seven different anglesto choose from but is windowboxed and on each selection there are smaller windowsfor each of the options to the left of the main window, when they should haveshown the seven main ones individually in 16:9 and made an eighth angle on theDVD to show the lot together.
There’s all of 2 minutes to see in the Backstage Footage, ratherincorrectly subtitled “Let’s See Action” because it’s not that excitingand finally comes Rehearsal Footage shot three days before the gigfor most of the guests, but it doesn’t give you any kind of major insightinto the preparation beforehand. All of the extras are in 16:9 anamorphicwidescreen dodgyvision as described earlier.
This DVD maybe Region 1 NTSC, not Region 2 PAL, which might occasionallyexplain some picture differences but nothing like the poor quality sufferedhere. It does explain why there’s no subtitles on this disc and yet the PALDVD cover that accompanied them state four languages are on the discincluding English.
There are 24 chapters to the disc, as described in the track listing aboveand the menus on disc one blend in footage from the concert with the background.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.