Pete Townshend – Live in Concert 1985 – 2001
Back in the early years of this millennium, for a brief period Pete Townshend ran a successful independent record label from his old Eel Pie website. Among the CDs he put out were a series of live recordings from various solo concerts and tours that he played in the years from 1985 to 2001 including his ‘big band’ Deep End show at Brixton Academy, London in 1985, the Fillmore, San Francisco in 1996, Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London, 1998, Sadler’s Wells in 2000 with music from Life House, and a couple of nights at the La Jolla Playhouse in La Jolla, California from 2001.
These and other great shows have now been remastered and put together as a 14-CD box set and released by Universal Music. There are seven concerts in all and each show is spread over two CDs housed in their own gatefold sleeve – seven gatefold sleeves in total. The box set also includes a 28-page booklet with a new foreword written by Pete Townshend and an essay on Pete’s solo shows by archivist Matt Kent. The booklet is crammed with pictures of tickets, posters, flyers and photos from the shows.
Design-wise, this is a great little box set, compact and colourful, featuring on the slipcase front a great shot of Pete at Brixton Academy in 1985 leaping in the air while David Gilmour looks on bemused and the Kick Horns in back add to that big band sound. This terrific photograph was taken by ace lens man, Rudi Keuntje.
The seven concerts are:
Brixton Academy, London, 1998 with Pete’s band Deep End featuring David Gilmour on lead guitar.
Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York, 1993
The Fillmore, San Francisco, 1996. This is one of the shows on Pete’s Psychoderelict tour.
Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London, 1998
Sadler’s Wells theatre, London, 2000. This is Pete plus a large backing band performing the songs of Life House.
La Jolla Playhouse, La Jolla, California 22 June 2001
La Jolla Playhouse, La Jolla, California, 23 June 2001
Here’s ‘Give Blood’ from the 1985 Brixton Academy show . . . Pete with Deep End featuring David Gilmour
