No, he's not. I love the Stones but I've never thought they were a particularly great live band. Keith Richards barely remembers how to play the songs he wrote. Live, the timing always seems to be off. Jagger runs around the stage but he seems to miss the keys. They always sound like they're phoning it in. Except for maybe a half dozen live tracks at most (the greatest being "Midnight Rambler" off "Get Your Ya Ya's Out" I've never really been blown away by any live Stones recordings.
The Who, on the other hand, prior to Moonie's death, was just powerful live. Crushing and thunderous. They should've called it quits when he died though. They haven't really done anything of any significance since then. However, "Live at Leeds" stands track to track as perhaps the best live rock album ever recorded. And the newly remastered video for "Live at Houston '75" is The Who as one of the greatest live acts ever.
Townshend really needs to pull some more stuff from the vault.
The 70 Isle of Wight show is the greatest single performance. The song “Water” is so good. Although LOL, I doubt these days it would fly, “And there’s none of us here who’d say “NO!” to somebody’s daughter!”
But pretty much after Quadrophenia, they produced maybe one song that would be on my Top Ten Who Song List: Slip Kid (which is just a fantastic song)
"Sympathy for the Devil" is my favorite from that album. "Carol" and "Little Queenie" are also good tracks.
I love the songs from “Odds and Sods”, especially “Now I’m a Farmer”, mainly because of Moonie’s opening drums and Nicky Hopkins piano-work......(Gourds!)
The running joke was that it wasn't live and it wasn't at Leeds. I think it was in Pete Townsend's book that he described how they had to put recorded tracks into it because although they sounded great when they played it at Leeds, they had issues with the recording equipment.
They do that intentionally and also on their studio recordings. That's why they're called a garage band and why the big appeal. They're not Chicago or Styx or ELO.
Listen to Honky Tonk Woman and other stones from that period. You can hear Charlie coming in micro-seconds later on the downbeat and Jagger singing faster than the beat. Keith and Wyman are the only ones who are on beat.
I know this because I'm not only a Stones fan, but I've played drums all my life. I just played my E-drums last night to Stones, and sometimes it's difficult to get Charlie's beat down, as simple as his fills were. He's not a Keith Moon nor a John Bonham nor any of the current accomplished drummers, but he had his simple style behind the downbeat that made the Jagger/Richards classics more interesting.
I love how they decided to do The Guess Who’s “Shakin’ All Over”, because they got tired of people confusing the two bands, so they figured why not just go ahead and cover one of their songs.