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Customer Reviews of The Who - Thirty Years of Maximum R&B Live

A wonderful peek at rock-n-roll's greatest live band!!
This video more than adequately convinces the viewer that The Who were, and still are rock-n-roll's GREATEST live band then, now, and forever more, in perpetuity! (a deliberate overusage of grammatical tenses, but what the hell, I enjoyed it immensely!) Whether seeing Keith Moon bash the living hell out of his drumkit to the tune of "So Sad About Us" early on or the entire band playing the hell out of their set at the Tanglewood Music Shed gig or their wonderfully blistering performance at The Isle of Wight Festival attests to The Who's exponential talent for playing live on stage. Pete Townshend's stingingly nasty guitar playing (including a number of trademark windmill guitar chords) is nicely complemented by Roger Daltrey's fearless vocals, John Entwistle's incredibly fluid bass riffs and Moon's maniacally yet timely drum assaults all throughout-and trust me, as an ardently passionate Who fan, this video MORE than cuts it- is someting that even non-Who fans will love! Of special note is the gig at 'The Tanglewood Music Shed' where it all comes together so wonderfully that you'll be left absolutely stunned! And, of course, the interspersed commentary by the three surviving members is also quite interesting; Pete Townshend's mention of the fact that The Who were "..scruffy, ugly , noisy horrible, loud, inconsiderate bunch of ---holes " and that in conclusion, "We became successful because that's what the AUDIENCE were like TOO." adds balance to this more than intriguing video. Do I recommend it? Take a guess.

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A Quick One While the Producer Was Away (apparently)
I own the laserdisc version and eagerly anticipated the DVD release. I am sad to say that it falls far below the standards we've come to expect from "fully loaded" DVDs. The video quality and sound, even given the quality of the original source masters, is far below what can be achieved with a proper remastering job. For a comparison with what COULD be achieved from an old Rock 'N' Roll movie, rent or buy the Criterion Collection's DVD release of "Gimme Shelter"; it'll blow you away. Furthermore, although the packaging promises an "eight-page booklet", it is nowhere to be found. I'm glad I have the "Thirty Years" CD box set which came with very thorough and beautifully written reference material. That said, this collection of Moon-era (and dispensible Kenny Jones-era) live performances are sure to make wish you were: a) alive in the mid-seventies, and 2) at a Who concert. They were THAT good!

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If you can find it, GET IT.
This was available in DVD a few years ago, but seems to have gone out of print. The piece is a good companion to The Kids Are Alright, as its concert clips don't overlap TKAA at all, and in fact the two complement each other nicely in some cases. It brings the published concert clips up to 1989, the last Who tour before the 30th anniversary mark, and includes some nice Kenney Jones clips.

The major omission, in my opinion, is the surviving clips from Live Aid. Sure they sounded rough that day. Sure they hated being in the same arena together. Sure John blew up the preamp in his main bass seconds before going on, and can be heard tuning his backup bass during My Generation. Wouldn't that be fun to see/hear? I think it would...

In any case, if you can find the 30 Years DVD, get it by any means necessary. Same goes for the VHS version. You won't regret it.