Rehearsals for Pete Townshend [ tickets ]'s "Lifehouse" were "very electrifying," said Pierre Lamoureux, an international music director at MCY.com, which is taping the concerts for a late spring webcast. The Friday and Saturday (2/25-26) performances at London's Sadler's Wells Theatre will concentrate on the 1970-71 music created by the Who guitarist, including many of the best-known Who songs, plus new material Townshend wrote during the following the 30 years.

Lamoureux was in London on Thursday (2/24) for two phases of rehearsals, one with Townshend on acoustic guitar, joined by rock musicians, and another with the London Chamber Orchestra.

"It didn't sound at all like classic rock with strings," Lamoureux said of the second phase. He said that spirits were high, indicating that an excellent show was in the works.

The theatrical component of "Lifehouse"--dealing with a post-ecological-disaster, totalitarian society whose members are fed their life experiences through a computerized "grid"--won't be included at the Sadler's Wells shows. That version finally materialized in Dec. 1999 when the BBC broadcast ''Lifehouse'' as a radio play, which Townshend has already released as a six-CD set, featuring original "Lifehouse" music and newer music composed for the work.

Both London shows will be recorded on Manor Mobile Studio's 48-track digital rig, and 12 cameras will capture everything, said Lamoureux. (During a live broadcast taping, a director chooses what camera shots the audience sees as the show happens, but in this case, the production crew will keep everything.) MCY.com will work with Townshend to edit the concert and create a 4-6 hour performance/documentary program that will also include backstage and rehearsal footage and stretches of Townshend's video diaries, which he has been releasing on his website. Townshend has complete artistic control over the final broadcast product, Lamoureux said.

MCY.com will announce when the webcast will be available--May is possible, Lamoureux said--and whether it will be webcast as one show or in segments. Once live, it will be online through the end of 2000. A price has not been set, but $8 is in the ballpark. A DVD release is also likely, but no timetable has been established.