Music on DVD: "The Who at Kilburn: 1977."

To soothe the perpetual inner discord associated with the holiday season, I recently purchased a DVD – not as a gift, but for my own personal, medicinal use: “The Who at Kilburn: 1977.” Included is a second bonus disc that has archival footage from a 1969 gig at the London Coliseum.

Although separated by eight years, both performances are noteworthy, providing compelling evidence of the distance traveled by the bands at the time, and by the survivors in the decades since.

The Kilburn show originated as part of the filming of Jeff Stein’s documentary about the band, “The Kids Are Alright,” which was released in 1978. Although beautifully filmed, the band’s performance at Kilburn was deemed patchy and inferior, primarily because Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle and Keith Moon had not played together in over a year. Only a small bit of the show made it into the movie’s final cut, which featured another show at Shepperton in early 1978.

Having now had the chance to view the previously unreleased footage, it is clear to me that the verdict of posterity differs from that of the filmmaker at the time. While it remains indisputable that Moon was in decline during both film-inspired sessions, the deterioration is far less noticeable in the Kilburn historical record than in the later performance at Shepperton, which proved to be his last.

Yes, it takes some time for the monolith to shift into gear. Once it does, the results are edifying.

The film quality of the bonus segment from 1969 is crude, and the sound sometimes muddled, yet overall, it is simply remarkable. Here is the band at its very peak – young and brash, but honed to a razor’s edge of professionalism by continuous touring in support of “Tommy.” There is no stage adornment, merely four musicians roaring through staples of the band’s early catalog, and a few welcomed rarities seldom heard live subsequently.

During Sunday’s televised football games, there were numerous ads touting the Kennedy Center 31st anniversary fete to be aired tonight, at which surviving band members Townshend and Daltrey will be honored for their legacy. It takes only a passing knowledge of the band’s history to know that Townshend, perhaps the best interview in all of rock music, would have something to say about the tribute.

Kennedy Center Honorees Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend ...

To Townshend's amazement, the world's appetite for the music he wrote in his 20s and 30s has never gone away. If you had told him at 19 -- a sullen Ealing Art School dropout with a baronial nose -- that he'd be singing "I Can't Explain" in his twilight years, he would have guffawed. But that song and a few dozen others, like "Pinball Wizard," "My Generation" and "Baba O'Riley," are among the most beloved baubles in rock's permanent collection. Although the band has officially retired a few times, we keep demanding that the Who re-form, and with some ambivalence, Townshend keeps saying yes.

I’ve always shared the guitarist’s ambivalence, wondering whether the periodic high points of the contemporary version of the group justified the longevity, or whether it would have been better in an artistic sense to die young and stay pretty.

In the end, a world without The Who seems quite unimaginable to me, so rock on … but don’t expect me to be watching the Kennedy Center affair.

Cringing makes my face hurt.