Dit zegt Dave Marsh over de Fillmore East opnames in zijn boek
Before I Get Old - The Story Of The Who:
The tape of the Fillmore East is extraordinary, the sound very clear for the time,
and the performance is outstanding, a remarkable burst of sustained energy that nevertheless has an amplitude of surges and ebbs all it owns. Each of the extended numbers is a triumph: "Relax", in which Townshend introduces many of the musical motifs around which his next set of songs were built; " A Quick One", more serious, less farcical than the recording; "My Generation", in a stunning version that opened up the recorded version without sacrificing any of its immediacy - or any of the inevitability of the smash-up finale. And the hard rock songs ("Summertime Blues", "Substitute",
"My Way", "C'mon Everybody", "I Can't Explain", "Shakin' All Over", "My Generation") redefined rock's power and authority at a time when the bluster of British blues and the laid-back modalities of West Coast acid rock were beginning to lose touch with the genre's original resources. In many ways, The Who Live At Fillmore East would have been convincing proof that The Who was the greatest live group in the world. But once they scrutinized the tapes back home, the Who decided against releasing them as a live LP.
The performance was perfect when it was experienced live or heard casually on tape. But subjected tot the kind of minute an album must inevitably receive, flaws leaped out: guitars in and out of tune, drumsticks in the air when they shluld have been pounding out the beat, vocals ragged (at one point in "Boris The Spider" Daltrey and Entwistle sing different verses simultaneously) guitarist whirling their arms overhead when they ought to have been striking chords. What was missing was the action, which magnetic tape could not hope to capture, missing the indispensible interaction between the band and audience, which was the medium by which the Who and its fans broke through into spiritual communion.
Dank voor het plaatsen,
CHIEP.