page_title: Live at Leeds
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Live at Leeds / Background
caption_attribution_description: Photos de l'exposition "Pink Floyd Interstellar" à la Cité de la Musique (Porte de la Villette, Paris). Read the story at zdar.net. Lire le compte-rendu de l'expo sur zdar.net
context_page_description: Live at Leeds is the first live album by English rock band The Who. It was recorded at the University of Leeds Refectory on 14 February 1970, and is their only live album that was released while the group were still actively recording and performing with their best known line-up of Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, John Entwistle and Keith Moon.
  The Who were looking for a way to follow up their 1969 album Tommy, and had recorded several shows on tours supporting that album, but didn't like the sound. Consequently, they booked the show at Leeds University, along with one at Hull City Hall the following day, specifically to record a live album. Six songs were taken from the Leeds show, and the cover was pressed to look like a bootleg recording. The sound was significantly different from Tommy and featured hard rock arrangements that were typical of the band's live shows.
  The album was released in May 1970 by Decca and MCA in the United States by Track and Polydor in the United Kingdom. It has been reissued on several occasions and in several different formats. Since its release, Live at Leeds has been cited by several music critics as the best live rock recording of all time.
context_section_description: By the end of the 1960s, particularly after releasing Tommy in May 1969, The Who had become cited by many as one of the best live rock acts in the world. According to biographer Chris Charlesworth, "a sixth sense seemed to take over", leading them to "a kind of rock nirvana that most bands can only dream about". The band were rehearsing and touring regularly, and Townshend had settled on using the Gibson SG Special as his main touring instrument; it allowed him to play faster than did other guitars. He began using Hiwatt amplifiers that allowed him to get a variety of tones simply by adjusting the guitar's volume level.
  The group were concerned that Tommy had been promoted as "high art" by manager Kit Lambert and thought their stage show stood in equal importance to that album's rock-opera format. The group returned to England at the end of 1969 with a desire to release a live album from concerts recorded earlier in the US. However, Townshend balked at the prospect of listening to all the accumulated recordings to decide which would make the best album, and, according to Charlesworth, instructed sound engineer Bob Pridden to burn the tapes.
  Two shows were consequently scheduled, one at the University of Leeds and the other in Hull, for the express purpose of recording and releasing a live album. The Leeds concert was booked and arranged by Simon Brogan, who later became an assistant manager on tour with Jethro Tull. The shows were performed on 14 February 1970 at Leeds and on 15 February at Hull, but technical problems with the recordings from the Hull gig — the bass guitar had not been recorded on some of the songs — made it all the more necessary for the show from the 14th to be released as the album. Townshend subsequently mixed the live tapes, intending to release a double album, but ultimately chose to release just a single LP with six tracks. The full show opened with Entwistle's "Heaven And Hell" and included most of Tommy, but these were left off the album in place of earlier hits and more obscure material. According to David Hepworth, because there was no microphone pointed towards the audience, crowd noise was a "distant presence, as distant as the traffic outside," making the recording "a faithful account of what the band played and nothing more."
caption: Pete Townshend used a Hiwatt CP-103 "Super Who" guitar amp on the recording.
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