Pete Townshend's 'Live In Concert 1985-2001' Box Set Announced

UMe has announced Pete Townshend's Live In Concert 1985-2001, a 14-CD box and digital set featuring seven long-out-of-print live albums by Pete Townshend.

Newly remastered by Jon Astley, the set gathers together for the first time all of the live solo recordings that were only available via Pete Townshend’s website, Eel Pie. All of the albums have been out of print for two decades. The set comes out on July 26.

The box set features expanded deluxe packaging in a CD sized box with new art by longtime Townshend collaborator Richard Evans, sleeve notes by band archivist Matt Kent, a new exclusive Pete Townshend interview, and rare photos and memorabilia in a hard-backed book.

The live shows included in the box set are Pete Townshend’s Deep End, live at Brixton Academy in London recorded on November 1 and 2, 1985, featuring David Gilmour from Pink Floyd on guitar; a live full rendition of Pete’s album Psychoderelict and more recorded at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York, on August 7, 1993, during Townshend’s only full solo tour; an intimate show from The Fillmore in San Francisco on April, 30, 1996, around the time of his first solo compilation album CoolWalkingSmoothTalkingStraightSmokingFireStoking. 

The Who guitarist returned to his old stomping ground for the first time in 30 years with Live At The Shepherd’s Bush Empire November 9,  1998. There are also as two nights at London’s Sadlers Wells Theatre, usually home to ballet and modern dance shows, presenting music from Life House. It was the only time a full Life House show has been attempted and the only times some of those songs were ever performed. There's also two shows from the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, where the Tommy musical ran, on June 22 and 23, 2001.

The shows included in this box set were all previously released online through Eel Pie. There was only one run of each CD, and they all quickly became collector’s items. While Townshend has often performed short solo sets for charitable reasons for, amongst others, Amnesty International, The Prince’s Trust and his own Double O charity, which helps victims of domestic abuse and those suffering from addiction, full solo shows have been few and far between. When he has put on an entire solo show, the setlists have been picked from his own output, specific Who songs, and cover versions of artists who have influenced him over the years.

Speaking of performing solo or performing with a band that wasn’t The Who, Pete Townshend said, “I always have too much to do, too much responsibility, and not enough time. I have to live enough life to provide me with inspiration and context for my songs, I have to then spend enough time in my home studio finessing songs so they feel worthy of my band (The Who), then I have to re-record them with that band, then speak eloquently about them to the media, justifying my creative divergences, then I must tour endlessly behind the new music, continuing to celebrate the old stuff as well, and then start all over again. The idea that I would do all that for The Who and then do it for myself as well is simply plain insane. And yet for a while I tried. It didn’t go well. One career is enough.”

As Who and Townshend archivist Matt Kent puts it “When Pete Townshend plays a solo show it isn’t just a concert, it is an EVENT. These CDs represent just how good these events are.”

Pre-order Pete Townshend's Live In Concert 1985-2001.