47 years ago tonight, The Who performed at Leeds University in Leeds, UK on February. 14th, 1970. The recording of this landmark concert became known as the greatest live album in Rock history
Classic Rock photographer Ross Halfin is an avid record collector – especially when it comes to The Who. He owns multiple versions of the band’s classic Live At Leeds album, and here he tells us through ten different versions of them.
The Who’s “Live At Leeds” is among the greatest live rock album of all time, The original on vinyl is way better than the uncut, remastered version, which is too much. It goes on for too long. The original edit by Pete Townshend captures all the dynamics of The Who as a band. And the vinyl release sounds better.
In England, there were three variants of “Live At Leeds”. The first came out with a black-stamp cover, and the first 1,000 copies of it had the ‘Maximum R&B’ poster from The Who at the Marquee [in 1964] inside. There have been versions with blue stamps and red stamps as well.”
There have been Taiwanese versions, Spanish versions, a Peruvian version with a picture of Townshend jumping on the cover… The critic Nik Cohn, who inspired Pinball Wizard and wrote the article that became Saturday Night Fever, reviewed “Live At Leeds” for the New York Times, and called it a “hard rock holocaust”. The hardest version to find, then, is the one that came out in Israel with Cohn’s quote translated into Hebrew on the cover. It had to be withdrawn.
Since its initial reception, Live at Leeds has been cited by several music critics as the best live rock recording of all time
The Fat Angel Sings 