Hollywood Palladium Live 1969 (Mainstream MAST-113)
Hollywood Palladium, Los Angeles, CA – June 13th, 1969
Heaven & Hell, I Can’t Explain, Fortune Teller/Tattoo, Young Man Blues, We’re Not Gonna Take It/See Me Feel Me, Substitute, Summertime Blues, Shakin’ All Over, Magic Bus
Hollywood Palladium is the latest Who release on Mainstream, hitting the streets last week. The tape has circulated before but makes its silver debut on this release. Distant and disturbing, this tape is poor to fair in quality at best.
The taper occasionally covers the mic (like during “Heaven & Hell”) and pauses between each song to check on his tape. It isn’t even clear if this is the entire set since only a fragment of Tommy is captured. To make matters worse the tape deteriorates at certain spots like at the end of “Shakin’ All Over”.
Once you get past the deficiencies of the tape, this is one amazing show. The Who are violent, cutthroat, obviously taking no prisoners on this night and the excitement generated is impressive. They get off onto a fast start with “Heaven & Hell” and the intensity never lets up. “Fortune Teller” flows seamlessly into “Tattoo”, and the greatest reaction is reserved for “We’re Not Gonna Take It/See Me Feel Me” which is what the crowd wanted to hear.
“Shakin’ All Over” has the crowd in a riot and the tape ends with a ten-minute version of “Magic Bus” before the tape trails off. They’re so aggressive I wouldn’t be surprised if they took hostages after the show and demanded a ransom!
All silliness aside, the show is so good it compares favorably with Woodstock, Isle Of Wight and Live At Leeds.
Mainstream used photos from the era, Roger in the tasseled jacket and Townshend in the white painter outfit. It’s a nice production by the label and it makes me wish it were better recorded. As it stands this appeals to the hardcore Who collector.
