A Quick history (while you are watching):
The song:
The song was one of Pete Townshend's first attempts at a rock opera, and contains snippets from each "act" of the opera. Due to lack of funding, Townshend was unable to hire a string section to accompany them on the album. When they had originally recorded the song, as a placeholder for the string section, they sang the chorus "cello cello cello cello", and after they realized that they couldn't get one, decided to leave the chorus in anyways. (it sounds great!)
About the performance:
This is from a 1968 Rolling Stones BBC tv special called "The Rolling Stones Rock n Roll Circus" and it featured numerous acts of the era with what was supposed to be a grand finale by the Rolling Stones. Queue The Who. They had just finished touring and literally stole the stage. They were so good in fact that they completely upstaged the Stones, which gave a mediocre performance (which they blamed on the film shoot being "too early in the morning"), , which lead to this film being shelved and not released until the late 90's. (There was even an attempt to rename it "The Who's Rock n Roll Circus"!)
This is The Who at its absolute best. They are in the zone, and loving every minute of it. This is what rock n roll is all about. Enjoy!
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