The Who - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: Charlton Athletic Football Ground, London, Britain, 5-18-1974

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I recently found a couple of BBC albums that are parts of album series that I thought were already finished. This is another one of those. I've already posted a "BBC Sessions, Volume 5" for the Who, as well as "Volume 6." So what was "Volume 5" has been renamed "Volume 6," and what was "Volume 6" has been renamed "Volume 8." Wait, 8, you say? Not 7? That's because I also found another album that needs to be slotted in there. I'll post that one soon as well. Let's hope there won't be any more renumbering after this!

Here's the link to what is now Volume 6:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-who-bbc-sessions-volume-5.html

And here's the link to what is now Volume 8:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-who-bbc-sessions-volume-6-in.html

This apparently was a pretty big deal of a concert at the time. It was kind of a rock festival (called "Summer of '74"), actually, due to the size of the crowd and all of the musical acts involved. It was held at a huge sports stadium that held 75,000 people, and it was sold out. The Who were the headline act, going on last, and the support acts were: Lou Reed, Humble Pie, Bad Company, Maggie Bell, Lindisfarne and Montrose. Those were all well-known, popular acts at the time. I wish I had the recordings for those too, but apparently only the Who portion was broadcast on BBC radio at the time, so worthy sounding bootlegs of the other acts aren't in the public domain.

In 1973, the Who released their epic rock opera double album "Quadrophenia," then toured to support it. That tour went into early 1974, but then the band took a few months off. They didn't put out a new studio album in 1974. They would only do a few concerts for the rest of the year, and this was the biggest one by far. It was one of the largest audiences the Who had ever played for up until that point, with only the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and a couple other big rock festivals around that time being larger. For the band's "Quadrophenia" tour, they basically played that album plus a few other hits. But with this concert, they went back to a "normal" set list, with songs taken from all points of their music career. Only four songs came from the "Quadrophenia" album ("Drowned," "Bell Boy," "Dr. Jimmy," and "5:15").

Apparently Pete Townshend (the band's lead guitarist and main songwriter) was going through some issues in 1974. He played this concert totally drunk, as well as the rest of the concerts the band did in 1974. As a result, he's said he doesn't have fond memories of this big event, and has said he thinks the band didn't play their best. However, I don't any problems with his playing or the band's as a whole, and their set went over very well with the crowd. The Who were in their musical prime in the early 1970s, so imagine even an off night by their standards was still pretty damn good.

This album is an hour and 46 minutes long.

01 I Can't Explain (Who)
02 Summertime Blues (Who)
03 Young Man Blues (Who)
04 talk (Who)
05 Baba O'Riley (Who)
06 talk (Who)
07 Behind Blue Eyes (Who)
08 Substitute (Who)
09 I'm a Boy (Who)
10 talk (Who)
11 Tattoo (Who)
12 talk (Who)
13 Boris the Spider (Who)
14 talk (Who)
15 Drowned (Who)
16 talk (Who)
17 Bell Boy (Who)
18 talk (Who)
19 Dr. Jimmy (Who)
20 Won't Get Fooled Again (Who)
21 Pinball Wizard (Who)
22 See Me, Feel Me (Who)
23 5-15 (Who)
24 Magic Bus (Who)
25 My Generation (Who)
26 Naked Eye (Who)
27 Let's See Action [Nothing Is Everything] (Who)
28 My Generation Blues (Who)

https://www.imagenetz.de/eq7b5

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/21dD3Xs2

The cover photo is from this exact concert. The original was rather blurry and low-res, so I used the Krea AI program to fill in some detail. It still is somewhat blurry, but at least it's better.