The Who & The Young Vic 26th of April 1971 and the Hiwatt vs. Sunn etc.

[Pekka]

Just listening to this great pre-"Who's Next" gig and marvelling at Entwistle's sound. Non-reverse and the Hiwatt rig sounds great, it's not as dark sounding as his T-bird & Sunn rig a bit later (I like that too). Lot's of great songs they were soon about to drop from the set such as "Pure And Easy" and "Too Much Of Anything" and I even like "Water" here even if it's a plodding hippie rock number that does the band injustice.



With this in the background I was wondering if Entwistle used Hiwatts in the "Who's Next" studio sessions too or did he acquire the Sunn gear for those? The sessions started in May '71 and all the pics I've seen from the "Who's Next" tour have the Sunn  rig.
Never seen any pics from the studiosessions 'though. Entwistle's recollections vary about the basses he used (P or Thunderbird) but a lot of the tracks sound like T-Bird to me when compring to his earlier Precision work. "Going Mobile" for example is a very clear T-Bird.

There's a pic from The Young Vic in the liner notes of "Who's Next" deluxe 2CD which is dated the 5th of May 1971 and shows Entwistle playing a P-Bass through the Hiwatts but the dating is incorrect (it's from 11/15/1970). The 4/26/1971 was their last at that venue.

[gearHed289]

Just listening to this great pre-"Who's Next" gig and marvelling at Entwistle's sound.

I'd love to hear this. Is it on YouTube?

I agree with some T-Bird sounds on Who's Next. If I had to say one or the other, I'd guess Hiwatts for the recording. I actually always wondered if they used more of the DI in the mix at this time, as his tone had kind of mellowed.

[Pekka]

It's available on the deluxe edition of "Who's Next"  2 cd or 3 LP released in 2003 and there must be bootlegs with the whole gig I'm sure.

John's sound was quite mellow on "Tommy" too where he used Sound City (or early Hiwatt) amps and a P-Bass.
Ron Nevison said that on "Quadrophenia" sessions for the bass recordings he used mainly John's amp because "his amp sounded great". Sunn and Fenderbird and (probably) Thunderbird for the two songs recorded in 1972 ("Is It In My Head" and "Love Reign O'er Me"). That sound is quite mellow too when compared to his live sound at that time.

It seems that John started with the non-reverse 'birds as all the earlier pics show him with them.
4 or 5 August 1971


Later with a reverse
Nov 23 1971

[Pekka]

Here's the Young Vic gig from the official release.

[Happy Face]

 Weren't the Sunns only used as power amps? I recall that he had something else running as a preamp?
That's what I recall.

From experience that makes sense. The solid state Sunn Coliseums were not particularly warm sounding. I kept my last one until a couple of years ago, not because if the sound but out of nostalgia and because they did look mighty cool.

[Pekka]

That was later when he started to use the Alembic basses for the "By Numbers" tour 1975-76. In 1971 he had Sunn Coliseum Bass and Lead models.

All his amp and bass history is told here:
http://www.thewho.net/whotabs/gear/bass/bass.html

[mc2NY]

Good question about what studio amps Entwistle used on "Who's Next."

He was using SÛNN earlier than that and also later. I am thinking that he mainly used SÛNN for his live North American tours and Hiwatt for the UK/Euro, due to the cost of transporting it all ?

But I know he used SÛNN for the Magic Bus album.....the doomed Orion Series of SÛNN, which was the first SÛNN attempt at solid state amps.  Those were designed with the large heads as just the preamps and the power amps were in the speaker cabs.

What was happening was, since The Who played so damn loud even while,recording, the power amp got really hot and then failed due to the vibrations from being inside the speaker cabs. SÛNN had the ship more over to complete the recordings.

Shortly afterwards, SÛNN CANCELLED THE Orion Series and recalled any that that been shipped to dealers. That is why you VERY rarely see any. The grill cloth was a very distinctive silver with long black vertical stripes. I had one Orion combo amp and one of the large preamp heads....but those were the only Orion survivors that I found in some 20 years of collecting SÛNN.

I spotted one of the 2x15 cabs in an old live shot of Berry Oakley with the Allmans....and there was an old SÛNN ad of the guitarist of Blue Cheer in front of a huge wall of those cabs...but that is about it before they killed off the line.

But Entwistle did use them for, I believe, the entire Magic Bus album.....between using the earlier SÛNN 200S tube heads and then all the later solid state Coliseum models.
I DID have a prototype COLISEUM MODEL T that had been Leslie West's, of which there was never an official.model. It was built on the larger 1000S/2000S chassis and had a similar layout to the later Model T.  You could see various rivet holes in the chassis where they had made changes and moved various components as they tried variations.  But that is also evidence that SÛNN liked the "Coliseum" name before there was a solid state line.

I also have seen a couple of very early Model T production heads marked on the back as "Coliseum Model T."

[Pekka]

Well, the Hiwatt rig travelled with him through the North American tours in 1969 and 1970 (except for Woodstock where he used Sunn gear for some reason).


Anaheim 1970

Earlier in '68 they still used different gear for the US tour and he played those Sunn amps you mentioned.

He also mentions this in an interview from '77 Guitar Player:
"In a way it was an advance for me because I've been in a rut ever since Tommy which was the last album where I used a Precision."

That reinforces my thought that "Who's Next" is all non-reverse Thunderbird.

[Pekka]

But I know he used SÛNN for the Magic Bus album.....the doomed Orion Series of SÛNN, which was the first SÛNN attempt at solid state amps.  Those were designed with the large heads as just the preamps and the power amps were in the speaker cabs.

"Magic Bus" was a compilation album of earlier album and single tracks but the Who did record in the States in 1967. "I Can See For Miles" and early version of "Mary Anne With A Shaky Hand" for example so maybe those Sunn amps were used on those recordings.

[Pekka]

EDIT: An accidental post I can't delete so I'll replace it with this great picture that is also close to the subject.

[Happy Face]

THANKS! That's really interesting to me, mc2NY and Pekka.

The early use of the 200s heads made sense. I guess the Colis too since they were one of the first loud solid state heads. And given his clean style, why not?

[slinkp]

I've nothing to add re. amps, but if you search on YouTube for isolated bass tracks from Who recordings (mostly extracted from Rock Band videogames), it's quite interesting to compare Pinball Wizard to Won't Get Fooled Again.  Both show that there was quite a bit more treble than was used in the final mix, and the former to me sounds like a precision and the latter like a T-bird IV.

[slinkp]

By which I mean the studio version of WGFA, not the Kids Are Alright version. Here:  The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again (Bass track):

[Pekka]

Indeed. "Going Mobile" is a clear T-Bird too and what a fantastic sound:

[slinkp]

For comparison here's the aforementioned Pinball Wizard:



And some live Precison / Hiwatt action... did somebody say "Clean"