The Who here and now
By Dan Campbell
Published March 9, 2007
There are those among us - Who fans to the tips of their crazy pinball-flipper fingers - who refused to drag themselves down to the Verizon Center Thursday night to see the Who. After all, they reasoned, the band is half dead and the survivors have reached old age-pension status. Better to remember The Who in its gilded heyday, circa 1967-73, when it was truly the greatest show on earth - a four-ring circus without equal.
These classicists have my respect for adhering to such lofty standards and maintaining respect for the dead. They also have my pity, because they missed as fine a rock’n’roll concert as is likely to roll through D.C. this year. Not that there was any room for them, since the arena looked virtually sold out.
With a pulsating riot of often hilarious photos and videos projected onto the backing video screens—often showing the Who in previous incarnations—it seemed the spirits of magnificent lunatic drummer Keith Moon and bassist extraordinaire John Entwistle were still present for the party.
The two surviving original members, singer Roger Daltrey and guitarist/alternate singer Pete Townshend, remain consummate showmen. While obviously not as athletic in his stagecraft as in his youth, Mr. Townshend nonetheless is still a highly energized figure, windmilling away at his guitars and occasionally springing skyward for one of his patented double-leg-bend jumps (no cross-stage slides, however).
Mr. Daltrey holds his own, still whipping his microphone about like a lariat and raising the hairs on the back of your neck when he hits that rebel yell at the climax of “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” the last number of the regular set.
There’s a bit more hoarseness in Mr. Daltrey’s voice these days, but it adds as much as it detracts. There’s a little more pathos now when he sings “Behind Blue Eyes,” and when he pleads “See me, feel me, touch me, heal me,” there is no doubt he really meant it!
Ably, if not spectacularly, filling in for the dearly departed was drummer Zak Starkey, Ringo Starr’s son, and bassist Pino Palladino. Starkey is probably more Moon-like in playing than was original replacement Kenny Jones. Palladino passed his biggest test of the night: the lead bass runs on “My Generation.” He certainly doesn’t add the complexity and fire to the music that Mr. Entwistle did, but then, who else could?
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In introducing “Pinball Wizard,” which kicked off a medley of about five excerpts from “Tommy,” Townshend noted that he had written most of his best songs when he was young. “I’m not young, and don’t want to be,” he stressed. “I’m just what I’m supposed to be in the great scheme of things.”
So let’s all stop ribbing him about the “Hope I die before I get old” line from “My Generation.” It seems Pete has finally grasped the fact that nine out of 10 times, the guile and treachery of corrupt old age will trump the exuberance and folly of precious youth.
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Far out, man!
I have a very hard time believing that Ringo’s boy can even come close to Keith Moon or Kenny Jones. I saw them both live and this reviewer is nuts. As a drummer myself, I can tesify that Jones had Moon down beat for beat.
In their early concerts, well after Tommy anyhow, they had four (4) giant searchlights behind them on the stage. No one had a clue what they were for. The house lights went out - the Coliseum was completely black - and then slowly you begin to hear “See me ... Feel me eee ... Touch meee “ and when the intro wound down they CRASHED full-on decibels balls to the wall and all of a sudden the searchlights came on across the tops of the heads of the people on the floor. Phew! I get chills just thinking of it.
That was the only time I ever experienced a “natural” high. <chuckle>
Ahhhhh ... those were the days my friend, we thought would never end ... . Some died before they got old and some didn’t. Is it too early for a drink?
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