The What, When, Why, and How of The Who
"Amazing Journey: The Story of The Who" has a familiar, if unfortunate, story arc: A great band arises from humble beginnings, loses a couple of members to "misadventure" along the way, yet returns with older and wiser surviving members who are newly able to fill arenas by delivering the hits of their heyday. But something great occurs during the end credits of this rockumentary, following the obligatory freeze-frame of surviving members Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend alone onstage (John Entwistle and Keith Moon having died in the saddle, as it were): The group grows progressively younger over the stuttering course of a thrilling collage consisting of many different Who performances of "My Generation." It's the coolest thing in a sometimes brutally honest documentary loaded with rare archival footage.
Something equally cool can be found on the package's second disc, subtitled "Six Quick Ones." The Who originated as film subjects: In search of a group to feature in a movie about England's "mod" scene, future Who managers, Kit Lambert and Christ Stamp, discovered the quartet, then known as the High Numbers, performing R&B covers at a North London pub called the Railway Hotel. Lambert and Stamp filmed the teenagers bashing away, more than creditably, at "Ooh Poo Pah Doo" and "I Gotta Dance to Keep from Crying" in April, 1964. Lost for four decades, this beautiful snapshot of youth culture at a certain stylish apex was rediscovered in the attic of a Dutch television producer and can be enjoyed in its entirety here. "Six Quick Ones" also includes four informative short films exploring the artistry behind each member of the volcanic, and somewhat tragic, pop-art project known as The Who.