"Great Performances" Pete Townshend's Psychoderelict (TV Episode 1993) Poster

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Concert version of the CD, with actors & projections
scott-3812 May 2003
This is a concert film, and just the concert - no interviews or any junk like that. It starts off with a couple Who standards, like "Behind Blue Eyes" and then goes into a fairly straightforward concert presentation of "Psychoderelict", complete with the three main voice characters actually appearing onstage as their characters, plus video projections of various things including the hacker character "Spinner".

The actors probably put a few viewers off; I liked the effect. The video stuff was quite interesting, and included some computer-generated fractal displays during instrumentals. The radio-show style plot of the CD was slightly rearranged.

Overall I like the music on this film better than the CD - it's a really good live performance, especially compared to parts of the CD which were more sequencer/keyboard based.

This showed up (in the US) on PBS's "Great Performances". I managed to get it on tape and have watched it a bunch of times. It should be available from Townshend's website, and if I find it on DVD I'll go ahead and buy it.
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2/10
I love Pete and The Who, but this was bad
walsh902108 June 2009
This is now for rent and sale on DVD after many years of not seeing the light of day. I had heard rumors that Pete was disappointed by it and put it on the shelf. But now he seems to be selling anything and everything he can on The Who's website.

As a kid in high school, I remember seeing TV ads for this show all over my (then) cable company's channels as a pay-per-view event. It debuted on pay-per-view in Dec. 1993. I wanted to buy it but I was a broke teen. It was either this show or a WWF and WCW pay-per-view. Pro Wrestling always came first then.

In the spring or summer of 1994 I was flipping through TV and to my delight I caught it for FREE on PBS as part of their "Great Performance" series. They didn't show the whole broadcast. Just the PsychoDerelict segment and the encores.

I had always hoped it would be replayed on PBS, but as far as I know, it aired only that one time.

Almost a year after the pay-per-view airing a friend of mine told me he had a cable de-scrambler and he taped the show when it first aired. I was hoping I could borrow his copy. He then told me he thought the show was so bad he wasn't sure if he taped over it or not. LOL..He said the actor's segments didn't work and the crowd was "pissed" even booing them at times.

Well, after all these years I was excited to see this show through Netflix a few weeks ago. I had a couple of friends come over for a "screening party".

What a disappointment! Pete's voice was shot for some reason. I don't know if he had a cold or he was strained from rehearsal or another show.

The actor's seemed to either have stage fright or they were rushed for time constraints. They didn't even act at times, but talked fast as if to get the segments over with as soon as possible. I'm not sure if the original show was live "live" on pay-per-view or if it was recorded then aired taped delayed.

It was awesome to hear Pete sing rare gems "The Kids Are Alright", "Keep Me Turning", "Rough Boys", and "Let My Love Open the Door." However the rest of the non-PD set list was the same old Who and solo setlists that have been overdone for years.."A Little is Enough", "Magic Bus", "Pinball Wizard", "Won't Get Fooled Again", etc. Some more "deep cuts" of albums would have been nice.

Looking back, I'm glad I didn't spend the $20-25 to get the pay-per-view way back in 1993.

It is a long show though, clocking in at almost 3 hours.
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