Live at Leeds 40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition by The Who – Album Review

By Matt Callard

Need reasons to fork out 80 quid on a decades old live set? Allow me to suggest some: Prototype. Benchmark. Lessons in dynamics.

Four elemental forces in total harmony and utter discord. Doors opening and showing the future – punk, prog, metal, grunge. Such audacity, such potency, such delicacy. Harmonies that, for the first remastered time, positively gleam.

“Personification of rock ‘n’ roll”

Bonus tracks, extras, the following night’s gig too. Townshend playing on the very fringes of his brilliance. Entwistle somehow circling the guitarist’s every movement. Daltrey twirling his mic, transforming art-rock into anthem. And Keith Moon – drummer as destroyer – his timekeeping reckless, dangerous, but never flawed, the personification of rock ‘n’ roll.

One more? It’s in Leeds. The heavy, heavy monster sound, indeed.
10/10