Rating: 
Summary: The complete history of music and mayhem
Review: When I was a teenager, I had this movie on video-disc. I watched it over and over with my brothers, fascinated by Pete Townshend's songs and Keith Moon's lunatic drumming. Then I grew up and the movie came out on VHS . . . but big chunks of it were missing.Now it's been restored. The sound is perfect, the picture looks better than ever, and everything from the original documentary is back. This includes the infamous mini-opera, A Quick One While He's Away. This 7-and-a-half minute song marks the transition between the band's overheated R&B and their art rock phase (in which Townshend tried to make sense of his stardom with a series of conceptual albums. Most of them worked, too). It's not easy to get into A Quick One the first time you see/hear it. You have to come back to it over and over until it sinks in and you realize what a breakthrough it was for the band. The extras on the DVD are pretty good. The best extra bit is an interview with Roger Daltrey. He talks about how shocked Keith Moon was to see the final cut of the film, noticing how quickly he had aged. Daltrey also gives the full story on the exploding drum kit from the opening scene --- an explosion that knocked the singer to the ground and permanently damaged Townshend's hearing. This is one of the best rock and roll documentaries you'll ever see. You get the full history of the band, with over a dozen complete performances. You'll see them as punk pop stars in the early days and (in their final performance with Keith Moon) as experienced and dedicated musicians. They never took the fame seriously (as you'll see in every interview segment), but they were serious about their music.
Rating:
Summary: Learn to Lip Read
Review: I've never seen a more passionate, greater performance than the Who's singing "A Quick One". I'd like to watch the full Rock and Roll Circus just to see if the crowd explodes. Moon's sweat just pours off him and the drums by the end of the song, and Townshend is geeked up throughout. Daltrey hits one brutal note, but who cares - he was still getting better, unlike the others, who were at their peak as performers. One thing I'd like to mention is how good Daltrey's interview on disc 2 is. He and Entwistle had very few lines in the movie, probably because Townshend and Moon were such strong forces, but now he's the last one standing, and his normalcy is now a plus. For one, he acknowledges what great harmonies they had (like the beginning of A Quick One), which is something rarely mentioned about the band because of Townshend's great songwriting and their strength in performance. But the truly touching part is his talking about watching the release of TKAA with Moon and how depressed Moon got, seeing scenes of himself bloated and essentially wasted mixed with scenes of the young, great drummer that he was. It's hard to believe that Moon was only 32 when he died.
Rating:
Summary: The History Of The Who
Review: If you want to see the Who in their prime, buy this director's cut of "The Kids Are Alright". It is superior in every way to the former VHS version that was edited. In my opinion, this is possibly the greatest rock music documentary ever made, edging out the Beatle's "Anthology" and the Rolling Stones "Gimme Shelter". The bonus DVD contains a revealing interview by Roger Daltry that explains the Who's chaotic chemistry.
Rating:
Summary: More than Alright...
Review: My favorite memories of the summer of 1979 involved seeing the Kids Are Alright numerous times at Philly's famed Tower Theater on a huge screen with full-concert, Dolby sound. If memory serves, that was also the year Neil Young's "Rust Never Sleeps" came out, and it, too, was a marvel to behold in a real concert venue. After years of various VHS versions, mostly edited and time-compressed for timing, from faded, scratched prints (VH-1 has shown one of those), we finally have this, the "Director's Cut" restored to its glory through painstaking image and audio reprocessing. It's vibrant and loud and instantly takes me back to those summer nights where concert-sized crowds filled a theater to cheer a movie screen as if the band were there live. (It really was that energizing an experience!) "TKAA" is a fantastic testimonial to why the Who were so great and so much more than the endless-retirement band that only occassionally showed glimpses of their old fire and power. The intensity of the performances will knock you out. And I defy anyone to not have their breath taken away in the instrumental outro on "Won't Get Fooled Again" when we cut from Keith Moon's drum flurry (great under-kit lighting) to Townshend flying across the stage, sliding to his knees as Daltrey's scream shatters the soundtrack. Perhaps more importantly, the wit, depth, and pathos of the band shine through the interview and film clips. From their mod days ("Hey, Paul Weller, Keith Moon called; he wants his shirt back!") through the recording of Who Are You, we get the band at all phases, warts and all. It's simply heartbreaking to see Keith Moon's descent into old-age at 31, and chills run down your spine when he looks to the camera in response to the interviewer's question about truth, "The truth as you want hear it? Oh, no. I can't do that. You couldn't afford me." He would be dead within weeks of the film's completion. As impressed as I was by the quality of the Led Zepplin DVD issue earlier this year, The Kids Are Alright reminds me why the Who were my favorite band. I don't recall ever hearing Plant or Page tell a funny story or tear at each other's sleeves during interviews. And the restoration of image and sound along with the DVD bonus features are wonderful. All in all, my favorite rock documentary gets the proper DVD treatment at last. Long live rock, indeed.
Rating:
Summary: The Who: In Full Glory!
Review: I'm going to make this really simple: TKAA is THE best music DVD I own -- and I do own quite a few others. Fully remastered, with incredible sonic and video quality, the movie captures the essence of the group, with various clips of appearances and concerts, and even back stage antics of the group after a gig. Highlights of the movie were the Sheperton concert footage, featuring live versions of "Baba O'Relly" and "Won't Get Fooled Again". I also enjoyed the second disc, which allows you to select one of four camera angles when viewing a few selected concert numbers. Having never seen the Who live in concert, for me this DVD is as good as it's ever going to get. The bonus materials are fantastic, from showing how the film was restored to actual comparisons between the theatrical release audio/video quality and the DVD restoration. It was very obvious to me that the folks behind the restoration of this film were big Who fans. The 2 disc set is a labor of love, by Who fans for Who fans. If you enjoy The Who, (and who doesn't?), this DVD really should be in your collection. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Get it NOW!!!
Review: Coming from a 16 year old who's never seen the Who live, or even videos of the Who live, this is the greatest DVD of all time!!! Having been a fan of the Who since I got Tommy for Christmas last year, I bought this DVD shortly after it came out and was absolutely blown away. Reading the liner notes for each song gives you insight into each performance, and quite often made me laugh out loud. The very first song, My Generation, from the Smothers Brothers comedy hour, is hilariously funny just because Keith's drum explodes like a bomb at the end, setting Pete's hair on fire. There are also such clips as Entwhistle taking a vintage tommy gun from his bass cass to shoot down Roger solo albums in his back lawn, which is excellent, and of course, the music. My favorite song on the DVD, and now perhaps my all-time favorite Who song, is Baba O'Reilly. The picture quality is incredible, the energy of the band is unbelievable, the sound is amazing! The cut of Won't get Fooled Again from the same concert is also one of the best moments on the DVD, when the lasers and smoke cut out in perfect sync with the end of Moon's drum solo and Roger lets out an amazingly cool scream and Pete goes sliding across the stage...wow. Even if you're not a Who fan at all, you wil be after you see this. Go, buy now! Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: Basically I'm in my 20's and I wasn't around for the whole Who phenomenon. Anyway, after seeing Quick One While She's Away and Sparks I realized that this band was of a different cut than you're average band. I've never seen live concert footage that got me so revved up like this stuff. Just the way this group pulled things off was done balls to the wall, or petal to the metal. When I saw Pete's arms flailing all over the place, doing wind mill after wind mill I thought to myself that this guy that I'm looking at could be the epitome off rock & roll. The demo of Barbara Ann had me laughing out loud. Make no mistake this video rocks. Not only that the interview segments are both insightful and humorous.
Rating:
Summary: Great DVD
Review: I think I can say this is just about the best DVD I have ever bought. Everyone should own it, because no one will be disappointed. This has all the classic songs, guitar smashing, and Moon you could want.
Rating:
Summary: Warning!
Review: By now you are probably used to putting a DVD in and grabbing a brew or something to avoid having to watch the "hey, they disabled the fast forward button" pre-film junk. This is not one of those films. There is no "other shows you're sure to enjoy" on this DVD.
There is, however, an incredible new pre-beginning that starts about ten seconds after the DVD door closes.
Rating:
Summary: Much Too Much!
Review: The 24-year wait is over! After first hearing the TKAA soundtrack in 1979, I immediately purchased a copy and played it over and over until the stylus on the turntable required replacement. When I finally saw the "rockumentary" (in the fall of 1979), the dramatic onslaught of live and TV performances left me speechless. Now, after years of playing the VHS version of TKAA, the release of the special edition DVD is extremely satisfying to watch. The packaging is first rate and the booklet provides details into the making of the film as well as the location and date of every interview, appearance, and concert footage. Watching Ringo attempting to interview Keith while drinking their "medicine" is a pure gem. The isolated tracks of the Ox on reel two are mesmerizing and leave no doubt who the "fastest bass player in the west" was. The long wait is now over and the restored version was worth the wait. As Keith Richards says before 'A Quick One, While He's Away', "And now ladies and gentlemen, dig The Who".
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