The Juxe: My Favorite Live Music Performance

On Saturdays, during the posting window (the 1st thru the 20th of the month), I’ll be writing about music. What does this have to do with magic? Nothing. I just like sharing music with people and this is my site, so I get to do what I like.

The Juxe is like, I guess a play on a jukebox mixed with the name the Jerx? It works well enough, get off my back. Unless you have a better idea.

My taste in music is primarily in the genres of indie pop, indie rock, power pop, garage rock, punk, surf, with some rap, electronic, and folk music as well. I listen to a lot of modern music with mid-20th century influences.

But today, rather than talk about something new, I’m going to talk about my favorite live music performance which is quite old.

It’s The Who performing A Quick One (While He’s Away) from “The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus,” which was shot in December 1968. This was a special that was supposed to be released on the BBC, but the Rolling Stones had it canned. The reason for that, some say, is that this performance by The Who made their performances look like shit in comparison. That story may be apocryphal, but I kind of buy it.

I’ve never been a huge Who fan (although the album, The Who Sell Out is a favorite of mine). And I generally don’t like songs longer than four minutes. And I’m usually underwhelmed by live performances. But despite all that, this is one of my favorite videos on all of youtube (which, I’m told, has upwards of 10,000 videos).

Roger, Keith, and Pete are all great showmen and that marries so well with this song that goes through multiple “movements” on its way to the electric finale. The energy from about 6 minutes on is particularly crazy, and the film editing is some of the best I’ve ever seen at capturing that energy. The whole thing is great from the opening a cappella bit to the weird clown at the end. “Oh, that’s marvelous!” Agreed!