Notes

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Muenster - Germany, Muensterlandhalle 12th sept. 1970 ( aud )
not CD or Vinyl sourced


Newspaper Reviews :


Police say: A smooth task - Actors in Ecstasy
Westfälische Nachrichten, 14.09.1970


Heads banging in rhythm, fists hammering knees in time, stamping, screaming,
shrieking, whistling: the active minority of the audience. Hammering, jumping,
extravagant, ecstatic-the roaring actors. Thundering, huge, black. the noisy
wall of sound. Colourful, dazzling, flickering, changing: the colouring
spotlights. Vibrating to the rhythm, filled with smoke, dark: Muensterland Hall.
Saturday evening: The Who.

Special treatment of a special audience: police, military police, german field
police, ambulance, youth office, searching of brief cases, barricades right
across the hall. "We are not in the army!" the organizer comments the delay
of half an hour. "Army" is a good argument. Most of the 3500, whistling impatiently
just a moment before, are happy.

The audience looks out for the mass to romp. It lacks mostly. Despite whiping
rhythms often inert. Never misbehaving. Loosing stiffness only when listening
to well-known tunes. Only a few are always in action. They owe it to theirselves,
to their hair, their clothes. The Who: physical strain, nearly two hours, uninterrupted.

Pete Townshend, who wears colourful denims with batik, jumps into the air again
and again. Stamping and raising quite a lot of dust he comes back down on stage.
He makes wide steps. Uncontrolled. Breaking out to the right or to the left.
Very fast he spins his right arm in circles. He sings falsetto, never stands
still. He is the rhythm's nervous wreck. John Entwistle wears a black leather
jacket depicting a white skeleton. Macabre. Antipole of the other three. Stiff.
Unaffected. Making rhythm by himself, but not himself a rhythm. Roger Daltrey
hurls the microphone. He is pure ecstasy or devotes himself to it. He crooks his
body, shakes himself, sings, screams. He is music transfered into body movement.
With his face to the audience he gives instructions how to listen to them.
With his back to the audience and swinging hips he stealthily takes a drink.

Keith Moon is the producer of the beat. Beater, drummer, timpanist, sweater.
Quite often he dries his head with a white rag. Always smiles. With his beats
he rules the instruments which surround him.

Summaries: The organizer says: "The boys have given all." The police: "A smooth
task." 3500 scream "encore", until they are tired of it. Well-behaving they leave the hall.

Muensterland Hall. Saturday evening. The Who.

FLA

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Applause at the wrong moments...
Westfälische Nachrichten, 14.09.1970


The travelling circus, as Pete Townshend, guitarist and bandleader of The Who calls his band, behaved loudly, like in the beginnings of his career in 1965 - but without destroying their instruments.

High spot of their debut in Münster was their own rock opera Tommy, the story of a deaf-dumb, whom the band presents a happy end.

Tommy should have set new direktions, should have provided a new image. (Not only) Münster proved the opposite. The Who's music hasn't changed at all. Like before it doesn't require much musical knowledge. Nevertheless the Münster audience seemed not even fit for that: Rhythmical clapping and storms of applause at the wrong moments weren't points in favour of their expertise.

The Who's instrumental performance isn't excellence, but it is satisfactory. Pete Townshend played some very good soli, but drummer Keith Moon's devilish treatment of his immense drum kit seemed slightly tense.

John Entwistle provided outstanding work on his bass; and singer Roger Daltrey proved that there don't have to be quality differences between studio and live performances.

W.K.


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


One-sided ecstasy
Münsterische Zeitung, 14.09.1970


The audience in the Halle Münsterland waited impatiently for half an hour. But then suddenly they are on stage, are simple and start in an insane speed: The Who, Rock'n Roll band from England, whose members Pete Townshend (lead guitar and vocal), Roger Daltrey (vocals) John Entwistle (bass and vocals), and Keith Moon (drums) have played together for six years. They played old songs and new songs and a lot of material from their rock opera Tommy.

In purple, green, and orange spotlights Pete Townshend performs one split after the other, plays chords with his circling right arm, Roger Daltrey swings his microphone like a lasso, and
Keith Moon rolls his drumsticks through the air. Part of The Who's performance is, like the hard music which they play perfectly, the show. In Pete Townshend's measured out movements you can find the adequate correspondance to his style of playing. He once said that Rock repeated itself every ten seconds, but music every ten years. You can see and hear that at the same time. With clothing and gestures singer Roger Daltrey tries to make an erotic impression on the female teenagers: tight blue trousers, shirt on bare skin, his way of grasping the microphone hysterically and stamping his right foot on the ground.

Bass player John Entwistle on the other side seems to be calmless itself, in a skeleton
costume, yawning provokingly from time to time. Especially in these contrasts the tension of their performance is maintained.

None of them is an outstanding solo artist, they only become great in their harmony and cooperation. Soli and improvisations are rare and short and can mainly be found in Pete Townshend's play.

Part of a good live performance is the audience's involvement. The Who started with unbelievable power, nevertheless they never managed to electrify the audience: they sat on their seats quielty and listened, until the ecstasy on stage had to give the impression of being artificial, unreal. Somehow you felt empty and lost. Even before the show the bouncer's unfriendliness didn't encourage a good mood, and the architecure of the hall added to the atmosphere: All seats had only seats to the front, which made nothing but consumption possible. You had to sit and keep seated, and that prevented the audience from communicating and takeing the music in physically.

Such a tense atmosphere had to get back to the band after all. The interpretations of their hits "Shaking All Over" and "My Generation" seemed flat and lifeless in the end. After less than two hours The Who left the stage without an encore, the audience went home, tired and disappointed. They had experienced once more that a good concert requires more than a good band.

Reinhard Wulf