MASSIVE LIVE AT LEEDS 40TH ANNIVERSARY SET BY THE WHO WITH UNRELEASED HULL SHOW

November 8th 2010, will see USM and Polydor (US UMe release date tbc) release a very special collector’s edition of the seminal Live At Leeds album and, for the very first time, this will include the full Hull concert recorded the following night.

Live At Leeds was the ultimate confirmation of the Who’s sheer ferocity as a live rock act, without equal. Whereas their studio recordings had only tantalisingly hinted at the all-out barrage of the senses that a live Who gig produced, Live At Leeds removed all doubt.

Following on the heels of the success of the rock opera Tommy, and the band’s grandstanding appearance at the Woodstock Festival, when released in 1970, Live At Leeds unwittingly documented the Who at the peak of their powers, whose shows now stretched up to two and a half hours without a break containing Tommy as their centrepiece.

Those 150 minutes are captured on the Super-Deluxe 40th Anniversary Collectors’ Edition of this landmark of live albums. At the time, live pop or rock albums tended to be primitive affairs when capturing both band and audience. Live At Leeds was no exception, recorded on a mobile unit placed amid the kitchen of a university refectory in an unassuming industrial town in northern England. But the results – crackling noises and all – were enough for influential pop culture writer Nik Cohn, to describe Live At Leeds in his New York Times column as “the best live rock album ever made.” As recently as 2006, it topped a poll in Q magazine of the greatest live rock albums ever made – a testament to its enduring legacy.

This new edition of one of the most important live rock albums ever contains:

• Two CDs containing the full Leeds show from 14 February 1970 recorded for the album including the complete performance of Tommy
• For the first time ever – two CDs containing the Who’s complete performance from Hull, which was recorded the following evening, but ultimately left in the vaults as Leeds was thought to have yielded better results. It was a close call as can be heard, the Hull show was equally incendiary.
• A heavyweight vinyl reproduction of the original six-track album as it was released in 1970
• A new 64-page hard-back, colour book containing rare photos, memorabilia from the original release, (replica contracts, letters, poster gig list, photos and more), plus liner notes detailing the history of this landmark album.
• A replica 7″ single – “Summertime Blues / Heaven & Hell” with colour sleeve.
• A classic Pete Townshend poster
• Housed in a hard-back box with cover artwork reproducing the original black stamped vinyl first UK pressing which, according to the July 2010 edition of Record Collector magazine, is now valued at approximately £250 in mint condition.

Source: Universal Music