The Who: Live At Leeds - 1st Press UK LP with Black Ink Cover all inserts MINT-

$

214

 The Who

Original 1970 UK 1st Pressing.

Black Ink Cover!!!  Complete with all Inserts!

Live At Leeds

Track    2406 001

Record: MINT-
(One or two plays only! Beautiful!)
Sleeve: NM+
(Light creasing)
Inserts: NM
(Light creasing)

Actual Item Scans & Photos

Live at Leeds is The Who's first live album, and is the only live album that was released while the group were still recording and performing regularly. Initially released in the United States on 16 May 1970, by Decca and MCA and the United Kingdom on 23 May 1970, by Track and Polydor, the album has been reissued on several occasions and in several different formats. As of 2005, the album is ranked number 170 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

It is often cited as the best live rock album of all time and is included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. It is also included in Q magazine's list of Loudest Albums of All Time.

Background
After releasing Tommy in mid-1969 The Who went on an extended world tour to promote it, and returned to England at year's end with a desire to release a live album from the tour. However, the band balked at the prospect of listening to approximately 80 hours of accumulated recordings to decide which would make the best album and it was rumoured that the tapes were subsequently burned to prevent bootlegging. Roger Daltrey cast doubt on this rumour in a 2006 BBC interview, but it was supported by Townshend during an interview (broadcast by the radio station Planet Rock on 11 February 2010) celebrating the 40th anniversary of the original recording.

Two shows were consequently scheduled, one at the University of Leeds and the other in Hull, for the expressed purpose of recording and releasing a live album. The shows were performed on 14 and 15 February 1970 at Leeds and Hull, respectively, but technical problems with the recordings from the Hull gig — the bass guitar had not been recorded on some of the songs — made it all the more necessary for the show from the 14th to be released as the album. Regardless of great approval of the Leeds gig by many fans and critics, the band members believed the recordings at Hull sounded better, as the acoustics projected better in the more spacious venue.

Packaging
The album cover looks like the simple cover of a bootleg LP of the era: it is of plain brown cardboard with "The Who Live At Leeds" printed on it in plain blue or red block letters as if stamped on with ink (on the original first English pressing of 300, this stamp is black). The original LP's cover opened out, gatefold-style, and had a pocket on either side of the interior, with the record in a paper sleeve on one side and 12 facsimilés of various memorabilia on the other, including a photo of the band from the My Generation photoshoot, handwritten lyrics to the "Listening to You" chorus from Tommy, the typewritten lyrics to "My Generation", with hand written notes, a receipt for smoke bombs, a rejection letter from EMI, and the early black "Maximum R&B" poster showing Pete Townshend windmilling his Rickenbacker. The first 500 copies included a copy of the contract for The Who to play at the Woodstock Festival.

The label was handwritten (apparently in Townshend's hand), and included instructions to the engineers not to attempt to remove any crackling noise. This is probably a reference to the clicking and popping on the pre-remastered version (notably in "Shakin All Over") which was from John Entwistle's bass cable. Modern digital remastering techniques allowed this to be removed, and also allowed some of the worst-affected tracks from the gig to be used also.

Accolades
Live at Leeds became a critical smash, with The New York Times acclaiming it as "the best live rock album ever made." Its reputation as such continues to this day with Q magazine recently putting it at the top of its list of the greatest live albums of all time.

The album's reputation has become so lofty that the venue at which it was recorded, the University of Leeds refectory, has been named a national landmark in the UK, commemorated with a blue plaque.

"Fortune Teller" and "Young Man Blues" are R&B tunes that were a standard part of The Who's stage repertoire at the time. "Shakin' All Over" is a cover of a hit by pioneering early 1960s British rocker Johnny Kidd and "Summertime Blues" is a cover of an Eddie Cochran song.

"My Generation" is drawn out into an almost sixteen minute medley including "See Me, Feel Me" / "Listening To You", "Underture", the instrumental riff from the end of "Naked Eye", "The Seeker," and a number of other mostly unfamiliar themes. "Magic Bus" is drawn out to seven and a half minutes (9:42 on the un-edited recording). On the originally released version, there is an 8 second segment near the beginning of "Magic Bus" (leading into the lyric I don't care how much I pay) where the music is played backwards. This was probably done to cover a glitch in the live tapes. The 1995 and 2001 CD mixes edit this section differently and do not have the backward portion. The backwards portion was retained on "Greatest Hits Live". The rest of the tracks are fairly straightforward renditions of the original songs, albeit with a consistent hard-rock power trio sound rather than any attempt to re-create the various studio sounds of their original recordings.

Track listing

Side one
"Young Man Blues" (Mose Allison)  – 4:45
"Substitute" (Pete Townshend)  – 2:05
"Summertime Blues" (Jerry Capehart, Eddie Cochran)  – 3:22
"Shakin' All Over" (Johnny Kidd)  – 4:15

Side two
"My Generation" (Townshend)  – 14:27
"Magic Bus" (Townshend)  – 7:30

Personnel
Roger Daltrey – lead vocals, harmonica, tambourine
John Entwistle – bass guitar, vocals
Keith Moon – drums, vocals
Pete Townshend – guitar, vocals

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