I am one of those people who loves knowing what the history of things is. I love knowing where things came from and their evolution. The Who’s Tommy has been around for a long time and yet I don’t know how the whole rock opera came about. This documentary gives all you curious folk out there the behind the scenes access.

Around that time The Who was a band that was teetering on the precipice of breaking up. Despite the fact that they had been successful for a few years they began to succumb to the pressures of recreating that success over and over. Pete Townsend was the most disillusioned and began writing longer songs. The longer format became an almost therapeutic way fro Townsend to deal with the abuse he had suffered as a child and memories of which he had mostly repressed as an adult. Eventually the experimentation by himself and Roger Daltry became the rock opera Tommy.

It is rare that you will get interviews with musicians in which they are so honest and condid about their lives and music. After watching this you can’t help but feel like you know The Who better as humans as well as musicians. Filled with informative and engaging interviews with band members and some equally interesting archival footage, the documentary really rounds out the story. So complete it is that it not only covers the iconic album but also paints a clear picture of the music scene at the time. We see how much of an influence the album had on the band and the music world.

Special Features: Beat Club 1969