Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970
Who's Next
The Who By Numbers
So what are The Who to do after their first successful album? Well experiment of course! Out of this we get a mish mash of an album, one that is very democratic in nature with all of the band members supplying songs for better or for worse (mostly for worse). Also evident here is the first �rock opera� that Townshend was to do, even though it is less than 10 minutes, it does point the way towards works like Tommy and Quadrophenia. Barely over half an hour, the album as a whole is fairly weak but still holds some entertainment.
Some good old rock n roll kicks things off with �Run Run Run.� The garage mix on the instruments adds to the roughness of the song. �Boris the Spider� is an Entwistle composition and highlights his bass lines. Lyrically it�s a bit cute, but it shows the promise that Entwistle had as a song writer and contributor to the band. Townshend was not the only one with skills and oftentimes Entwistle would have the best songs on any give album. Also the way �Boris the Spider� is sung in the chorus is brilliant. Keith Moon gets his shot with �I Need You� which is pretty bad, but of course with Moon you only really want bashing cymbals and drums and he delivers in spades. The Beatles mocking dialogue in this song is also kind of funny. �Whiskey Man� is another Entwistle tune and while it is lesser than the first one, it is a nice listen and the horns are pretty cool. �Heatwave� is of course a cover by Martha and the Vandellas and is a faithful rendition of the song. It is a good tune and hard for anyone to mess up. �Cobwebs and Strange� is a Keith Moon instrumental circus like piece. It fades in and out, as story goes they moved around the microphones playing their instruments. It�s not good though. Waste of effort.
�Don�t Look Away� is an ok song, nothing really special about it. �See My Way� is Roger Daltrey�s lone contribution to the album and in my opinion should have been rejected. It�s horrible bad....really really really bad and two minutes too long, even though the song is only two minutes long. Thankfully the best song on the album comes next to wipe that abomination from my ears, in the form of �So Sad About Us.� A splendid tune with the usual Townshend power chords and nice �la la�s. When the word �sad� gets pulled out in the chorus it is a great musical moment. Finally the epic comes with the title track, �A Quick One While He�s Away.� This song details the story of a woman whose husband leaves, and her adventures in trying to stay faithful, then being seduced, then the husband coming home and forgiving her. Sure. All of the parts of the song are different enough to make it interesting and the parts with Ivor the Engine Driver (the usurper to the dude�s throne) are cool in their imitation of a train. The end with the "cello cello cello" background vocals are hilarious and the �You are forgiven� lines are pretty cool and show some cool vocals. On a related note, the live performance of this at the Rolling Stone�s Rock and Roll Circus is pretty awesome to view in order to see just how rocking the Who were.
Final Comment: Short and average. There�s nothing essential here, so we�ve got a no go on this one. Do try and get �So Sad About Us� though.
Score: *�
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