Amazing Journey

At the end of 2005, it was announced that The Who were having a major DVD film/documentary produced about their legendary career produced by the band and directed by Murray Lerner. At the time, not much was said about the actual content other than there would be extensive interviews, maybe some recreated scenes of certain eras with actors (very bizarre), and rare concert footage (this is what the fans really want). All was quiet during 2006.

Today, a press release was leaked for the upcoming DVD project. It now involves two separate films. Lerner's involvement is still co-director for one of the films, but it appears The Who's management company Trinifold is actually the major creative force here along with Spitfire. The films are entitled as follows:

'AMAZING JOURNEY: THE STORY OF THE WHO'
'AMAZING JOURNEY: SIX QUICK ONES'

Both will tell the story of The Who with have exclusive interviews, mini-documentaries and rare footage. The second film will have more in-depth features for hardcore fans.

My question is, is this really necessary? It is important for a legacy artist like The Who to have a quality bio-documentary available for historical purposes. So in that sense, the films serve a purpose. But, The Who's fan base is for the most part built around a devoted following. The band no longer has the mass appeal they had in the past. They still are a solid concert attraction and move some decent units of "hits" packages annually, but their core audience is certainly not as broad as it once was when The Who were the biggest band in the world.

Their core audience wants a lot of live footage and live recordings from the archives. They are not interested in hearing another story about the band and hearing more interviews from Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey that they have heard a hundred times. This is where these new DVDs will fail. Their devoted fan base expected something different and probably deserved something different. Yes, there will probably be ample footage, some of it rare, but what the fans wanted was a DVD in the vein of the top-selling Led Zeppelin "DVD." That is the live package that all live packages from here on out will be measured against. It is a no nonsense release; it strictly consists of hours and hours of beautifully produced concert footage/TV footage spanning the band's career.

The Who have the ability to release a DVD that comprises of something similar. Imagine if the band issued a "live" DVD of the following:
*TV performances like Shindig, Smother's Brothers, Ready Steady Go!, etc
*The entire 1969 London Coliseum gig
*portions of the 1969 Woodstock gig
*portions of the 1970 Tanglewood gig
*portions of the 1971 Houston gig
*portions of the 1974 Charlton gig
*salvageable portions of the 1977 Kilburn gig
*portions of the 1978 Sheperton Sound Stage gig
*1978 rehearsal footage
*portions of the 1979 Chicago Amphitheatre gig
*a mix of highlights from their 1982-2007 gigs
*rare amateur footage (maybe even make deal with the 'owner' of the professional Houston 75 footage)

That would fill 2 DVDs with ease and secure the artistic legacy of The Who's reputation as one of the all-time greatest live acts. This is the sort of DVD fans wanted. And the frustrating thing is that something similar to this could have been a reality. Some of this footage will be on the upcoming DVDs, but most likely it will be just snippets and a few selected full performances. It seems like The Who really dropped the ball this time, but since I have not seen the films yet, I need to keep an open mind. A full DVD of performance footage would have definitely been an amazing journey.