Pete Townshend @ London, UK 1974-04-14

Pete Townshend
April 14, 1974
The Roundhouse
London, England
First-generation recording via JEMS Archive
Who’s on First, Vol. III

Recording Gear: unknown

2024 Transfer: First generation cassette > Nakamichi RX-505 azimuth-adjusted playback > Sound Devices USBPre2 > Audacity 2.0 (16/44 capture to .wav) > iZotope RX9 and Ozone 10 mastering > iZotope MBIT > FLAC > finishing via TLH

Goody's additional lineage: iZotope RX10 (Wow & Flutter removed or greatly reduced) > Audition (seamlessly join 2 show-halves, deleting overlap)

01. Intro
02. The Seeker
03. Big Boss Man
04. Substitute
05. Amoureuse
06. If I Were a Carpenter
07. Happy Jack
08. Tattoo
09. Join My Gang
10. Behind Blue Eyes
11. Going to New York
12. My Generation (demos)
13. Girl From the North Country
14. Corrine, Corrina
15. No Face, No Name and No Number
16. Let’s See Action
17. Pinball Wizard
18. See Me, Feel Me
19. My Generation
20. Magic Bus
21. My Generation II

When Pete Townshend performed a solo acoustic set in 1995 in New York, he told the audience that “he’d never done this before” — meaning play the piano in public. But he had, of course, once in 1982 and this time, too, in 1974, a benefit performance for a children’s play center.

While remastered versions of this recording exist on the Internet, the 50th anniversary presented the ideal time to reach for a cassette tape that Jared had cataloged as a “first gen” in his database, indicating a copy made directly from the master tape back in the mid 1970s. (If you’re the taper and have the master, please get in touch.)

Volume III of “Who’s on First” presents Townshend’s one-off show in London, April 14, 1974. The Who’s biographer Dave Marsh recounted that Pete’s nerves flared when the press hyped what he’d envisioned as a low-key afternoon appearance. Maybe that’s why the set included so many covers from Townshend’s record collection, many of which probably flew beneath the radar of attendees expecting to hear Who songs.

Granted, Pete played a good number of those, too: the opening salvo of “The Seeker,” two songs from Tommy, a delightful take of “Let’s See Action,” and a traipse through a couple iterations of “My Generation.” (Pete also treated the audience to brief taped segments of two unreleased demo versions he’d recorded at home in 1964 — call it an early Scoop!)

The set made room for numbers by Véronique Sanson, Tim Hardin, and Bob Dylan, blues popularized by Jimmy Reed, and a Traffic song. Townshend’s own “Join My Gang” appeared, too — performed live for the only time.

Even the most demanding fan had to have come away impressed with his range of material and his set-up: acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards and piano, and tape loops. “Foxtrot 2 on the beatbox,” he informed the audience at one point, as he prepared his accompaniment. Those eclectic elements — whether backing vocals or instrumentation — made for a bit of a mad scientist feel as Pete worked everything from the fretboard to the keyboard to dials, switches, buttons, and pedals, switching from one to another, sometimes mid-song.

While the 1995 set came off as more of a master class, playing this reminded me of how Eddie Vedder staged his earliest solo shows, from the spinning reel-to-reel deck to the white lab coat he’d don near the end. Did he take a page from The Roundhouse? Who knows? Either way, this one’s for you, Ed.

Other versions of this recording, while very clean, lose a bit of fidelity to take out bass rumble and hiss. BK transferred the first-generation cassette and mastered in line with the sound on the tape. Thanks as always to my friend of so many years. iZotope 7’s spectral repair tool came in handy, excising a few instances of whistles. Overall, it plays as a fine document of a historical moment. We’re happy to share it.

And we couldn't have done it without Goody, who went above and beyond: pitch correction, of course, but also critical work to repair areas of wow and flutter, which he identified, corrected, and explained as only the Good Prof could. Those corrections help make this one a keeper. Goody, thanks a million!

Townshend quipped at his 1995 appearance that he does “one of these every century.” That means that he’s due to reprise a live arrangement like this. We can’t wait.

Share it freely, and for free.

- slipkid68


https://pixeldrain.com/u/FSY1CSu9