The documentary features extensive interviews with The Who songwriter Pete Townshend and frontman Roger Daltrey, as well as archival interviews with late bandmates John Entwistle and Keith Moon. At the time, Daltrey says, “We were a singles band going nowhere.” For his part, Pete Townsend simply felt incapable of writing any more of the kind of singles that had been The Who’s calling card. Of course, that wasn’t the only reason for the genesis of what would become Tommy.
The Who, like countless other bands of the era, had been experimenting with LSD at the time. After one particularly bad trip on an international flight, Townsend swore off hallucinogens and toward spirituality, particularly the highly mystical writings of Meher Baba. This new understanding led him to try and come to terms with somewhat vague memories of abuse he had suffered as a child. Townsend’s musical frustration, drug experiences, religious readings, and memories of abuse all seemed to come together to influence his creation of Tommy, a boy who clearly isn’t very much different than Pete Townsend himself.
Townsend’s apparent abuse as a child informs quite a bit of Tommy, but it’s notable that he turned to the late John Entwistle to write the most graphic songs about abuse on the album, something he discusses in detail here. Roger Daltrey openly admits that he initially had summoning the right emotion to sing some of the more emotional songs, even laughing on occasion, until, he “grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and made this person (Tommy) come alive.” Of course, Tommy would make Daltrey one of the best frontmen in rock history and launch The Who into the stratosphere. Not bad for a band who just the year before was nearly ready to call it quits. Pete Townsend admits here that if Tommy had been a flop, the band would have split up.
The Who Sensation: The Story of Tommy provides a wealth of interviews with band members, insiders, and critics who provide valuable information and insight into how Tommy came to be, while also providing a nice overview of the bands career up to that point.
Presented largely in the 1.78:1 aspect ratio (some of the archive footage is in 1.33:1), As you might expect, Eagle Rock’s 1080i transfer is an up and down affair. The archival footage comes from several sources, as such, quality varies. The modern interview segments are fairly sharp and well defined. This isn’t a bad presentation considering the material.
he Who Sensation: The Story of Tommy features both a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track as well as an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 option, but there really isn’t much difference between the two, since we’re mostly dealing with interviews and archival footage. The musical snippets are well spread through the surrounds on the DTS-HD Master Audio track, but that lasts just a few minutes of the two hour runtime.
English, French, Spanish, and German subtitles are included.
The following extras are available:
- Beat Club 1969 (SD, 32:45) An episode of a German TV series, this black-and-white segment has The Who lip syncing to several songs from Tommy, interspersed with an interview featuring Pete Townsend.
