The Grateful dead started it but as it gets harder and harder to make money off studio recordings, everybody from the Allman Brothers (RIP) to Phish to Bruce Springsteen have started hawking their concerts to the faithful.
What Pete Townshend and Roger Daltry prove on this last Autumnal tour is decay is a process of the body first, the brain follows it sadly and Tuesday night, we followed the Who down, as they seemed bother eternally Mod kids (I mean the opening, better portion of the show) and elder statesmen battling forces beyond their control. They were kids in old men’s bodies.
Hours before I go to see the Who perform a Greatest Hits set, here is a 2012 viewing of Quadrophenia, and I am interested in how much difference three years makes. I enjoyed this show, but I saw it two more times before the year was over and it wore off me…
The Who never really recovered from Keith Moon’s death, and that’s true: it was a bigger disaster than you can even begin to imagine, despite Moon falling apart in the last few years. And the complaints about the 2013 tour? Not exactly unwarranted. But I end up with my Beethoven comparison… would you say “yeah, I don’t wanna see Ludwig, he’s too old and he’s deaf”? Neither would I. I’m going to Tuesday a Barclay Center. They’re also playing Saturday at Forest Hills.
The Kids Are Alright – The Who – There is a plaintiveness about this song, maybe more so now than 50 years ago, but the word kid reverberates and the sense of a scene in movement is also partly a scene closing down forever. “I don’t mind…” is suh a loaded line – A+
It was, as you might expect from a retrospective show (“THE WHO HITS 50!”), hit after hit after hit from that point on. Roger was in fine voice and he continues to defy Father Time with his G.I. Joe action-figure chest threatening to burst free from a barely buttoned shirt
After the British Invasion took America by storm in 1964, U.S. radio listeners long remained fascinated with U.K. musicians, who often were simply updating the Delta and Chicago blues traditions with a better sense of style. The U.K. bands represented below range from the traditional hard rock and metal of The Who and Led Zeppelin to the more progressive rock styles of The Moody Blues and Pink Floyd
My problem with the Who in 2015 (well, 2013) is they are too bombastic, I love the psychedelic pop group Who vastly more than the heavy duty hard rock band. Much better “I’m A Boy” than “Behind Blue Eyes”. Still, this is a great setlist, it is a careerist setlist. I can’t wait to see em at Barclay Center. “I Can See For Miles” was the fourth song I ever learnt to play…
MY GENERATION (1965), A QUICK ONE (1966), THE WHO SELL OUT (1967), TOMMY (double) (1969), WHO’S NEXT (1971), QUADROPHENIA (double) (1973), THE WHO BY NUMBERS (1975), WHO ARE YOU (1978), FACE DANCES (1981), IT’S HARD (1982), ENDLESS WIRE (double) (2006)
MY GENERATION (1965), A QUICK ONE (1966), THE WHO SELL OUT (1967), TOMMY (double) (1969), WHO’S NEXT (1971), QUADROPHENIA (double) (1973), THE WHO BY NUMBERS (1975), WHO ARE YOU (1978), FACE DANCES (1981), IT’S HARD (1982), ENDLESS WIRE (double) (2006)
Elvis Costello opened for the Who a coupla years ago at a benefit gig, but you’d have to go as far back as the Clash to find an opening act as great as Joanie for these cats. Because, yes indeed folks, Joan Jett is the opening act at the Who’s 50 Anniversary gigs in May 2015.
this guy has recorded with about everybody in the music business, from The Rolling Stones to the Who, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles, The Beatles, the Kinks, the Clash,… basically there is a great chance that the classic song stuck in your head right now, was recorded by Glyn.
My bet is they will be back in 2016 as well and end it all in London around two years from now, Pete and Roger make 50 million a piece and live happily ever after. I also really hope they get Wilko Johnson, if he is still kicking, one of the great disappointments in the Daltry-Johnson tour didn’t make it to New York. The film I saw was superior to the Who last year.
Co-editor Helen Bach has invented a new form of road rage, one where you don’t actually need the road to participate. Helen, similar to murder for hire would be consumer Morrissey, at least love animals but not me. I have blood on my hands and watch me lick it off slowly
Why the hell aren’t they touring acoustic? Save the strain and the backing tracks, the pops can sit on stools and relax and they sound fabulous. Just a thought but it seems to me a much better way to celebrate their history than trying to pretend your 20 when you’re 70.
The Who don’t need to be so big, they don’t have to prove anything, really they don’t. They can tone it down, get rid f the sythns and the power station and contract to the size of a rock band, just a three piece and rock sing and guess what they could play? The great 1960s hits just the way, maybe even a little faster, they were recorded
Gypsy Heart Side A EP – Colbie Caillat – A long time fan of the pop singer, this five song 18 minute EP has nary a clunker in the lot: a sweet sound giving Taylor Swift a run for her money. “Blaze” is fabulous – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A-
It’s not going to come quick though, they’re actually still looking for a writer. But luckily with Daltrey on board there will be a bit of credibility. Who on Earth is going to portray these guys anyway?
How obsessed you are going to be over this second volume of live recordings by the Beatles for the BBC will depend how you feel about the concept of John Lennon playing a chugging guitar riff for two and a half minutes on “Lucille
Substitute – The Who – Before all the heaviness of Tommy or even A Quick One, or even “My Generation”, there was the distilled fury of this teenage misogy and displacement. Freud would have a lot to say.
She is huge, about as big as you can get and I would like to give you another clue as to who it is but I can’t tell you in public. Plus, she is working on a new album and that would be a big story if it was l known
