The Who – Live at the Isle of Wight 2004

When it comes to legendary bands, The Who are certainly one of the top names with a career that has spanned several decades  and seen their music as the soundtrack for moviews, as well as releasing a string of hits.  When the Isle of Wight festival was resurrected, it was only a few short years in which it grew rapidly before they booked The Who to headline.  The Who played the final year of the original Isle of Wight festivals in 1970 – a performance that was released in 1996 as a live album.  As such they were an obvious choice to headline the new festival, and in 2004 they did just that.

Now their 2004 performance is being released as a live album and DVD on Eagle rock as either BluRay, DVD or 2CD/DVD.

The film quality is great, and it’s well filmed and edited with multiple cameras. The sound quality too is excellent as you come to expect these days but with a 13 year old show you’re never certain.  So the question is how was the show?  Well that’s easy to answer – The Who were in great form, and with a back catalogue of songs like theirs they were always likely to go down well.  Watching to the DVD or listening to the CD, you’re reminded of just how many of their songs you know, whether it’s the hits such as Pinball wizard, or songs such as “Baba O’Riley” which millions will recognise these days as the theme music for the hit TV show CSI New York – in fact all three CSI series used The Who songs as their theme music, helping bring their music to a new generation of listeners.
It’s nice to hear the between song dialogue too, such as them demanding the volume be turned up and telling local fans that the low volume is so their aging parents (who are younger than The Who) can have an early night, before joking that many of the fans were probably conceived at one of the early Isle of Wight festivals.

It’s a great live release – but then again with The Who, you expect nothing else.

Track listing:

1. I can’t explain
2. Substitute
3. Anyway, anyhow, anywhere
4. Who are you
5. Behind blue eyes
6. Bargain
7. Baba O’Riley
8. The punk and the godfather
9. 5:15
10. Love reign O’er me
11. Eminence front
12. Drowned
13. Naked eye
14. Real good looking boy
15. You better you bet
16. My generation
17. Old red wine
18. Won’t get fooled again
19. Pinball wizard
20. Amazing journey
21. Sparks
22. See me, feel me / Listening to you
23. Magic bus