The Who 'Greatest Hits Live', Available on iTunes

Just in time to wet your appetite for The Who’s appearance during this years Super Bowl half time extravaganza in Florida, iTunes makes 22 live tracks available for download.

The debate over which of the three greatest rock bands-Beatles, Stones and The Who-is the greatest has raged for decades. But there has never been any argument over which of the three has been the greatest band in concert. The Who has reigned o’er them all. Now, 22 recordings of the band’s biggest and best-known hits-most of them never widely available or unreleased and 20 of them newly mixed by the band and its production team-have been collected on Greatest Hits Live (Geffen/UMe), released exclusively on the iTunes Store on January 19, 2010. Just a few weeks later, on February 7, The Who will take the stage once again when the group headlines the Super Bowl XLIV Halftime Show at Dolphin Stadium in South Florida.

Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder has said that, “The Who quite possibly remain the greatest live band ever” (Rolling Stone, 2004) and Greatest Hits Live justifies that statement with scintillating tracks ranging from 1965 to 2009, from London’s Royal Albert Hall to the San Francisco Civic Auditorium.

The excitement and raw energy of singer Roger Daltrey, guitarist Pete Townshend, bassist John Entwistleth and drummer Keith Moon are heard live with “My Generation” from an early BBC Radio session in 1965 and then in 1970 at City Hall in Hull, England, with “Happy Jack” and “I’m A Boy,” and “Magic Bus.” The Who then move around the world to the San Francisco Civic the following year for “I Can’t Explain,” “Substitute” and the melancholy “Behind Blue Eyes.” Also from the ’70s are a medley of “Naked Eye/Let’s See Action/My Generation” at the Charlton Athletic Football Club in 1974; “Pinball Wizard,” the anthemic “I’m Free” and cheery “Squeezebox” in Swansea in 1976; and “5.15” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” at the Capital Centre in Largo, Maryland.

Five recordings from the ’80s-“I Can See For Miles,” “Join Together,” “Love Reign O’er Me,” “Baba O’Riley” and “Who Are You”-are from a legendary performance at the Universal Amphitheatre in California during the band’s triumphant 1989 reunion tour (with Simon Phillips on drums and a horn section). The following year, The Who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Following “The Real Me” performed in Watford in 2002, a Royal Albert Hall benefit performance also that year witnessed a roaring “The Kids Are Alright”-both with Zak Starkey on drums. Sadly, however, they were among the final performances with Entwistle, who would pass away that June. The most recent tracks are “A Man In A Purple Dress” from a 2007 show at the Nassau Coliseum in New York and a scorching “Eminence Front” (with bassist Pino Palladino) in Brisbane, Australia, in March 2009.

In 2010, The Who enters a new decade still rockin’.

THE WHO – GREATEST HITS LIVE

1. I Can’t Explain
Recorded 12th December 1971, San Francisco Civic Auditorium

2. Substitute
Recorded 12th December 1971, San Francisco Civic Auditorium

3. Happy Jack
Recorded 15th February 1970, City Hall, Hull, England

4. I’m A Boy
Recorded 15th February 1970, City Hall, Hull, England

5. Behind Blue Eyes
Recorded 12th December 1971, San Francisco Civic Auditorium

6. Pinball Wizard
Recorded 12th June 1976, Vetch Field, Swansea, England

7. I’m Free
Recorded 12th June 1976, Vetch Field, Swansea, England

8. Squeeze Box
Recorded 12th June 1976, Vetch Field, Swansea, England

9. Naked Eye/Let’s See Action/My Generation
Recorded 18th May 1974, Charlton Athletic Football Club, South London, England

10. 5.15
Recorded 6th December 1973, The Capital Centre, Largo