I think the difference between my love for The Beatles and my love for The Who is the fact that I've been alive to experience more of The Who's musical journey. To me, The Who are less mythical, I suppose. But seeing "Amazing Journey", the new documentary (or "Roc-Doc", as VH-1 insists) tonight made me realize how important the band and their music have been to me ever since I was old enough to like rock and roll.
The film is propelled by interviews, performance footage and photos, with (thankfully) no "Behind The Music"-style omniscient narrator or swelling, ominous background music. The early biographical sketches of the band members, especially Pete's, really caught my attention; I was following Pete's autobiographical blog posts earlier this year. I also enjoyed the commentary by everyone from Eddie Vedder to Keith Moon's mum, and hearing so many fun facts about the band (was Pete sincerely worried that Jimi Hendrix was stealing his moves?).
To me, the most interesting part of the film had to be Pete's commentary on his songwriting career. He mentions that he found songwriting to be "boring" up until the time of Tommy, and after its success, he worried about playing God from that point on, especially during Quadrophenia. He confessed to feeling like a puppeteer pulling the strings his bandmate marionettes in order to put on his little shows. But gradually, he gave himself more and more permission to make his songwriting personal, and he credits Roger with always being the perfect vocalist to interpret his songs.
The interviews and comments are candid and, for the most part, sincere. The Cincinnati concert tragedy is mentioned toward the end of the film, with respectful comments from Kenny Jones and others, but neither Pete nor Roger speaks about the event. Pete does speak frankly about his arrest on suspicion of possessing child porn. And as much as I love the guy, I guess he just wouldn't be Pete without saying something shockingly egotistical and dumb; in this movie, the top award has to go to his observation that "Keith was a genius, John was a genius, I was certainly on the edge of it . . . Roger was a singer." Okay, Pete.
The film covers just about all the major events in the life of the band. Keith dies. Sad. Band breaks up. Sad. John dies. Sad. Roger and Pete live on, and Pete claims that only now have the two of them been able to feel truly close.
"Amazin Journey" is a perfect mix of history, trivia and music. Who knows, maybe they'll make it into an album, a stage show, a film of the stage show....
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