Live At Leeds
Well now: regularly touted as one of the greatest live albums in the history of live albums, and hailed as such at the time, Live At Leeds is 50 years old. I don’t remember the last time I listened to it, The Who are not a band that I’ve ever really listened to with any enthusiasm. I’m not deaf to their power or Pete Townshend’s songwriting capability, but I’ve always taken them in small doses. I realised early that I didn’t like Tommy (I think the only LPs I’ve ever tried to use as a frisbee and they weren’t very good for that purpose either), though I did like a lot of Quadrophenia and many of their individual songs.
Live at Leeds starts out well with Young Man Blues showcasing the band’s strengths: Entwhistle’s fluid bass, Moon’s uncanny instinct for drumming, Townshend’s shifting from rhythm to lead and back on his then trademark Gibson SG. The track is reminiscent of Led Zeppelin in some respects, but more accomplished. There’s a good Substitute which ends too soon. Shakin’ All Over calls back to their roots. The album benefits from only limited extracts from Tommy and very little crowd noise. It is well recorded. There are good dynamics within and between the songs.
And yet I turned it off during my second listen without any desire to listen any further; at no point did I really connect with it, and my ears had been bludgeoned enough.
Live At Leeds is not on Spotify in its original format (later expanded versions are there), but it is on YouTube
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