Deep End Live! (Live From The Brixton Academy, London, UK / 1985)

Album review

Pete Townshend and the Deep End Band played live for two benefit outings -- November 1 and 2, 1985 at the Brixton Academy -- to help support Townshend's own "Double O' Charities. The performances are excerpted here and were used in a made-for-home-video, also called Pete Townshend's Deep End Live!. Initially, a promotional 12" EP of the show was released to AOR radio stations in August of 1986. However, significant interest in the project would ultimately yield a 10-song LP which was issued to retail a few months later. Townshend (guitar and vocals) is backed by an ensemble that includes a core band of John "Rabbit" Bundrick (keyboards), Chucho Merchán (bass), and Simon Philips (drums) with Peter Hope-Evans (harmonica), Gina Foster (backing vocals), Billy Nicholls (backing vocals), and Jody Linscott (percussion) as well as an eight-piece brass section. When compared to the Who, the extended instrumentation provides Townshend with a larger sonic pallet to work from. The artist takes full advantage on the stylish update of the R&B classic "Barefootin'," and a suitably dramatic overhaul of "I Put a Spell on You." Plus, perhaps just to demonstrate his top-shelf taste in modern music, the English Beat's "Save It for Later" is a stone gem with the intimacy of an "unplugged" type of backing complete with sax -- by either Tim Saunders or former Stiff Little Fingers member Simon Clarke. Even though it could be considered a Who tune, Sonny Boy Williamson's "Eyesight to the Blind" is given a big city swing that presented the familiar melody in a fresh context. The Townshend originals serve up one offering from the '80s solo albums Empty Glass (1980) ("A Little Is Enough"), All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes (1982) ("Stop Hurting People") and the Who-related tunes "Behind Blue Eyes," "I'm One," and "Pinball Wizard."

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