The Who
Riverfront Coliseum
Cincinnati, OH
December 3, 1979
JEMS Master

Taping Gear: Teac M-100 > Sony 153SD (mono, Dolby B on)
parts of 4 songs recorded with Uher Mic > Uher Cassette Recorder

Lineage: Master Cassettes > Nakamichi 670 azimuth-adjusted playback > Nakamichi outboard Dolby B decode > Wavelab 96/24 1-ch mono > FLAC front-end (24/96)

Taped and transferred by JEMS

Disc one (61:57):
(1) Substitute (3:13)
(2) Can't Explain (3:38)
(3) Baba O'Riley (6:00)
(4) The Punk and the Godfather (7:24)
(5) My Wife (7:18)
(6) Sister Disco (5:34)
(7) Behind Blue Eyes (4:33)
(8) Music Must Change (8:20)
(9) Drowned (9:10)
(10) Who Are You (6:43)

Disc two (54:20):
(1) 5:15 (5:54)
(2) Pinball Wizard (3:18)
(3) See Me Feel Me (5:42)
(4) Long Live Rock (4:41)
(5) My Generation Bolero (4:34)
(6) I Can See For Miles (4:51)
(7) Sparks (6:12)
(8) Won't Get Fooled Again (10:18)
(9) Summertime Blues (4:11)
(10) The Real Me (4:35)

There are no fades applied, so if you choose to downsample and burn to CD these breaks are only a suggestion.

Pete Townshend: vocals, guitar
Roger Daltrey: Harmonica, Vocals
John Entwistle: Vocals, Bass
Kenney Jones: Drums
John Bundrick: Piano, Keyboards
Howie Casey: saxophone
Reg Brooks: rombone
Dave Caswell: trumpet

Perhaps the most tragic concert in the history of rock and roll.

The third night of The Who's Winter '79 tour is infamously known for the deaths of eleven fans outside the doors of the Riverfront Coliseum before the show. Wikipedia does a solid job of explaining the circumstances around what happened. They can be found here and we've included the text from that page in the torrent as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Who_concert_disaster

The Who themselves went on and played their set, blindly unaware of what had happened until after the show ended. As with the show the night before in Pittsburgh, there were several firecrackers going off in the crowd which was again addressed by Pete. Despite not knowing what had occurred before the show, Pete and Roger tried (unsuccessfully) several times to get the crowd on the main floor to stop pressing forward. It was an extremely volatile situation inside as it was out, which may explain why the show actually wasn't canceled on the spot for fear of what the crowd might do.

Despite the terrible circumstances, there's no getting around that the Who's performance this fateful night was great, building on and surpassing the previous two nights shows. In "My Generation," Pete played his bolero for the first time on this part of the tour. Earlier, when introducing the new/additional musicians on stage, PT referenced other horn-section rock bands Chicago and Blood, Sweat and Tears, then dubbing The Who "Blood, Sweat and Shit." Samples provided.

When the band left stage after the main set, they were told by their management to play a shorter encore; the first sign something was amiss. After the encore they were told what had happened before the show. These terrible circumstances, obviously, cast a shadow over the rest of the tour. We drove to Buffalo the next day, not entirely sure whether there would be a show or not. There was, and the band addressed what happened in Cincinnati from the stage. But that's the next installment of our Who '79 Revisited campaign. For now, you can listen to the bizarrely unaffected performance in Cincinnati by a band that had no idea what had happened to their fans before the lights went down.

Tapeboy for JEMS

___________________________

Additional comments by ademotte:

This is perhaps the most important show in The Who's career for all the wrong reasons. It was unfortunate that the poor crowd control efforts by the promoter tarnished the band's reputation for several years to come. The performance itself was quite good, and listening to it you can empathize with the band for doing their best to manage an out-of-control crowd.

In terms of sound quality, I feel as though I say this with every JEMS torrent I post, but the sound quality is exceptional given the era in which it was recorded. My guess is that J was crunched on the floor and doing his best in a very hostile setting. There are only minor moments of crowd interference that don't really distract one from the music; the overall sonic range is very good with good balance and a great live feel. This is the third version of this recording I've heard, and it's by far the most interference-free and best-sounding of the bunch.

Many thanks to the JEMS team for their efforts in digitizing this tour, and in particular sharing this historically significant document. More to come from this run shortly.

Note that this is in 24/96 format and would need to be downsampled to 16/44.1 to burn to CD (or use a problem which automatically downsamples). A 16/44 version will be posted separately. Mp3 samples are included in the comments.

---

On December 3, 1979, British rock band The Who performed a concert that was marred by a disastrous turn of events that resulted in the deaths of eleven people.[1] This particular concert was held at Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. The Who was in the midst of the United States portion of its first world tour since Keith Moon died and the band had already played Passaic, New York City, Detroit, and Pittsburgh before arriving in Cincinnati for their first show there since 1975.

The concert was a sellout, with 18,348 tickets sold. The majority of these, nearly 15,000, were for unassigned general admission tickets that included an arrangement for festival seating. These seats were not assigned until the night of the show and done so on a first-come, first-served basis. Under this type of arrangement, concertgoers who want to be as close to the stage as possible have two options. One is to arrive at the venue early and stand in line outside the doors for an extended period, in spite of weather conditions that might not be optimal (in this case, the Cincinnati night was bitterly cold). The other is to forcibly push one's way to the front of the line, which could potentially result in a dangerous situation.

The arena management limited the access to the venue from the outside as well, with some entries remaining locked to prevent fans from sneaking in (although union restrictions were also said to have played a part[citation needed]).

Before the show, as a sizeable crowd began to gather at one of the entryways, The Who decided to perform a late sound check. Some members of the crowd heard this and mistakenly believed that the concert was starting. In the confusion some people in the back of the crowd began pushing toward the front, resulting in a mass rush toward the entrance. This caused many people to get trampled while some suffered more serious injuries. Eleven concertgoers were unable to escape the throng of people pushing toward them and were killed by asphyxiation. There were a total of twenty-six other injuries.

Those killed were Teva Ladd, age 27; Walter Adams, Jr., 22; James Warmoth, 21; Phillip Snyder, 20; David Heck, 19; Stephan Preston, 19; Peter Bowes, 18; Connie Burns, 18; Bryan Wagner, 17; Karen Morrison, 15; and Jacqueline Eckerle, 15. Twenty-three other fans were injured in the rush for seating at the opening of the sold-out concert.[2] The concert went on as planned, with the bandmembers not told of the tragedy until after their performance.

The families of the victims sued the band, concert promoter Electric Factory Concerts, and the city of Cincinnati. The suits were settled in 1983, awarding each of the families of the deceased approximately $150,000, and approximately $750,000 to be divided among the 23 injured.[3] The city of Cincinnati also imposed a ban on festival seating, with minor exceptions, for the next 25 years.[4][5]

Images for all shows as well as full size images for this show.

Images for this show:











Who1979-12-03RiverfrontColiseumCincinnatiOH (19).jpg
Who1979-12-03RiverfrontColiseumCincinnatiOH (2).jpg
Who1979-12-03RiverfrontColiseumCincinnatiOH (3).jpg
Who1979-12-03RiverfrontColiseumCincinnatiOH (4).jpg
Who1979-12-03RiverfrontColiseumCincinnatiOH (5).png
Who1979-12-03RiverfrontColiseumCincinnatiOH (6).jpg
Who1979-12-03RiverfrontColiseumCincinnatiOH (7).jpg
Who1979-12-03RiverfrontColiseumCincinnatiOH (8).jpg
Who1979-12-03RiverfrontColiseumCincinnatiOH (9).jpg