What was the first "band xxx performs album yyy in its entirety" type of event?

Question

In recent years I've seen a lot of "band xxx perform album yyy in its entirety" type of events, including "Lou Reed performs Berlin", "Pearl Jam perform Ten" and lots more.

But what was the first event of that type ever? Who started this trend and why?

Answer 1

From my preliminary research, which includes a Quora question, a RateYourMusic list, and a couple of other references, it seems like it may have been The Who, who played their classic double album Tommy live starting in April of 1969. Now, there is a caveat here. They technically switched the song order and didn't play four tracks from the album: "Cousin Kevin", "Underture", "Sensation", and "Welcome". So while they weren't technically performing the album in its entirety, it's hard to argue that they weren't performing Tommy.

There's also the question of an event or tour being billed as playing an album in its entirety. While I'm unaware of any advertising or press releases in 1969/1970 actually saying that The Who was performing Tommy, the last time they performed the album, on December 20, 1970, where guitarist Pete Townsend announced, "This is the very last time we'll play Tommy on stage." So clearly it was known that as a part of this tour, The Who were performing Tommy.

Now, if the fact that The Who didn't perform Tommy in its entirety means that Tommy is not the correct answer to this question, there are a few potential runner ups.

• Jethro Tull performed Thick As A Brick in its entirety starting in 1972. According to this site, they may have started playing the album in full starting on January 18th of that year, which was about two months before the album was released.
• Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon was performed live starting on February 17, 1972, about a year before it was actually recorded, as "Dark Side of the Moon: A Piece for Assorted Lunatics". There were a number of differences between these live versions and eventual studio recordings, however, but the basic structure of the soon-to-be album was there. The band performed the album in full soon after its release, starting in March of 1973.
• Marvin Gaye performed What's Going On on May 1, 1972, although he played the second side of the album ("Right On", "Wholy Holy", and "Inner City Blues") first, apparently because he was nervous. (It was his first live performance in two years; he hadn't performed live since the death of his friend Tammi Terrell).

As for "why was this trend started," check out Tetsujin's answer. I think it accurately answers why a lot of bands are trending towards it nowadays, re-playing an entire album that came out 25 years or however long ago to drum up some nostalgia. But I'd say that in the beginning, when The Who, Pink Floyd, and other artists started coming out with concept albums, they viewed the album itself as a piece of music, rather than a collection of songs. So like a classical orchestra performing an entire concerto, they performed an album in its entirety because it was intended to be a single piece of music.

Answer 2

Reasoning: It's a great way of re-selling an old artist 'back from the wilderness' but with nothing new on offer.

Who first: I bet that's going to be harder to nail down - there's been a huge resurgence in old acts coming back to do their old stuff, probably driven by the success of a million tribute bands around the world.

For the past 15 years or more, it's been possible to see [not]ABBA Live or [not] the Beatles, [not] Freddie Mercury, etc etc on stage in a thousand clubs round the world, day in, day out.
Some of them even come with [vaguely] amusing names, Blowasis, Bjørn Again, The Bootleg Beatles, etc

My guess is some of the original acts thought they could cash in on that resurgence. Why pay to see Loo Read when you can go see Lou Reed... why see Bjørn Again, if Abba were actually on tour, Pearls Jammin' if there's Pearl Jam. [Freddie gets a bye on this round, not being with us any more, but even Queen + Guest Vocalist have been doing the same thing.] Pink Floyd actually made up with Roger Waters to play at Live8.

Touring used to be just a way of advertising the latest album; no-one ever made money on a tour, it was a business expense.
Since the Stones first did it in the 90's & made a killing, it's now a way of making money. No more the 'tenner a ticket' in hopes of selling a few more copies of the new album, now you can be paying 100 - 150 for the privilege of taking your binoculars to try see who's way out there on the stage in the distance.

Big gigs are big money these days.