The Who Live in Texas '75

A good, but not great, capture of The Who in concert.

Filmed on their 1975 tour to promote their album The Who By Numbers, all the well-known songs are there: the 60s stuff like Can't Explain, My Generation and Substitute, a large slice of Tommy, the biggies from Who's Next, a smattering of songs from Quadrophenia plus, of course, songs from The Who By Numbers.

Nothing wrong with the music, except that, if you've watched concerts of The Who before, they don't really do anything differently. However the lighting and camera work weren't ideal for a concert film. There's only two cameras, it seems, so there's not much variety in shots and angles. The lighting makes the whole thing look like a cheap, decayed home movie, with sepia tones.

Amateur camera, sound, and editing can't detract from what is an amazing event in classic 70's stadium rock history. These guys rock at a thunderous rate of speed and, they do it like indefatigable iron men. The play list is exactly what a true Who fan would hope for. Keith Moon gives a stellar performance. He proves in Houston this night why he was and, still is considered the greatest drummer of all time. Rodger Daltry struts and paces around the stage like a peacock. He is at the height of his vocal and masculine prowess. Pete Townsend swaggers with confidence, as a man aware of his creative genius and, just vulnerable enough to need to share that genius. Thunder fingers gets his turn with "Boris The Spider". His mastery of the bass guitar holds the entire chemical reaction that is a Who performance together like dark matter holds together the expanding and contracting universe.