Whatever else you might care to say about the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, you could never say that they haven\u2019t gotten their due.\u00a0 They are two of the most influential, and successful, and widely praised bands in the history of rock and roll.<\/p>\n
And on any given day, I\u2019d just as soon listen to the Who.<\/p>\n
In the same way, I\u2019ve enjoyed bits and pieces of biographical profiles of the Stones and the Beatles (notably the overlong Anthology<\/i> series) — but Amazing Journey<\/i> establishes a new standard for the genre.\u00a0 As frenetic and compelling and incisive as the band whose 40-year career it chronicles, this is a truly essential piece of rock and roll filmmaking.<\/p>\n
To pull this sort of thing off correctly, you need several things to come together.\u00a0 You need to have unlimited access to the band\u2019s own archives (check), you need new interviews and newly unearthed footage to supplement the material fans are already familiar with (check), you need attention to detail that is affectionate without becoming overwhelming (check), you need direction and editing astute enough to sustain a strong narrative drive (check), and you need a band whose music and lives are significant and dramatic enough to be worthy of such care (check).<\/p>\n
There are sharp insights to be found here even for longtime fans.\u00a0 Bassist John Entwhistle, the forgotten man of the original quartet, emerges as perhaps its greatest musical innovator and in ways both figurative and literal, the rock around which the other three more mercurial personalities in the band orbited.\u00a0 Singer Roger Daltrey is bravely portrayed as a sort of stricken golden boy, the charismatic bandleader who invited the others in, only to discover he was now the least talented and least essential member of his own group.\u00a0 Pete Townshend — the group\u2019s guitarist and chief songwriter — is revealed as the proverbial tortured genius, a solitary man filled with a rage he could only truly release onstage. <\/p>\n
The film traces the band\u2019s early history in the detail only an authorized biography could ever provide, but nothing is whitewashed and surviving members Townshend and Daltrey show great maturity and insight in looking back on the band\u2019s ups and downs.\u00a0 Equally as fascinating are the observations offered by admirers including Sting, the Edge, Noel Gallagher of Oasis and Eddie Vedder, all fans who truly understand and appreciate what made the Who great — emotion.\u00a0 Explosive outbursts, instrumentally and vocally and lyrically, of emotion.<\/p>\n
The companion DVD this package offers (Amazing Journey: Six Quick Ones<\/i>) is nearly as wonderful as the two-hour film itself, containing six featurettes focusing on the individual band members, the Who\u2019s cultural handmaidens the mods, and the band\u2019s return the studio after more than 20 years to work on new material after Entwhistle\u2019s death.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
One favorite moment came on the companion disc. \u00a0Keith Moon, in addition to being a certifiable maniac whose partying exploits\u00a0are legendary, was one of the greatest and most unique drummers in rock history.\u00a0 You get a hint of what made him so unique early on in the film when the group\u2019s manager observes that all four band members played lead — lead vocals, lead guitar, lead bass and lead drums.\u00a0 Keith would have been a disaster in any other band, he says.\u00a0 But as drummer Rob Ladd explains in the \u201cKeith\u201d featurette, dissecting the group\u2019s very first hit \u201cI Can\u2019t Explain,\u201d \u201cwhen they played it live, you got into uncharted territory.\u00a0 It\u2019s as if you had a 106-piece orchestra onstage, and Keith was 102 of the pieces.\u00a0 He was covering all the bases.\u201d\u00a0 Or you could just leave it to Noel Gallagher, who gets in the last word: \u201cWell, he\u2019s the Jimi Hendrix of the drum kit, innt he?\u201d<\/p>\n
Amazing Journey<\/i> is a fantastic piece of filmmaking and one that makes a thorough case — without ever boasting — for the Who as one of the great acts in the history of rock and roll.\u00a0 If you\u2019re a fan already, you need this — and if you\u2019re not, one time through this DVD\u00a0and\u00a0you will be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":29061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5649],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-40579","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-who","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40579"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}