A night of two and a quarter hours of sweat, energy and singing with some dancing thrown in for good measure and that was just the audience. We had magnificent seats, seven rows back from the stage, dead centre. We had seats, but once the music started we were all on our feet. It is just silly sitting at a rock concert.
Straight onto stage and into I Can’t Explain. Roger wore a charcoal grey t-shirt and lighter grey jeans with his blue tinted glasses. Pete also wore charcoal grey, but his was a shirt and he had black trousers. His shirt was not tucked into his trousers and so as the night wore on, it occasionally fell over the strings of his guitar causing him to have to quickly flick it back behind the guitar. Yes, I really watch every detail or at least as much as I can. Tumultuous applause followed and you could tell it was going to be a great night.
A moment later and we were into The Seeker. We were searching high and low…or was it low and high! Yes, I know the answer.
Relay followed and then a spectacular performance of Who Are You. The back of the stage had four screens which could move around independently or join together to form one large screen. During Can’t Explain there was vintage footage of them performing the number and during Who Are You the black and white film of what looked like the speeded up version of the London to Brighton train journey. I think it was the one that used to be shown on TV in the sixties as an intermission. What amazed me was they finished the song exactly as the train pulled into the station. How about that for timing. By now the audience were hooked.
Next Behind Blue Eyes from Who’s Next, Fragments and Real Good Looking Boy about Elvis.
Next The Who featured six tracks from their latest album Endless Wire. The album has 21 tracks and some are very short. They played the songs end to end and they only lasted about 12 minutes in total.
The songs were:
Sound Round
Pick Up The Piece
Endless Wire
We Got A Hit
They Made My Dream Come True
Mirror Door
Then the excitement really rose and the tingles kicked in as the haunting intro to Baba O’Riley began. This is a magnificent song and it went down with a tremendous ovation at the conclusion. So many ecstatic happy faces.
The band apart from Roger Daltry, Pete Townsend, Zak Starkey (who really does fit into the band) were Pino Palladino (bass), John Bundrick (piano and keyboards) and Simon Townsend (Pete’s brother on guitar and backing vocals)
Eminence Front from their 1982 album It’s Hard was next and then another new track from Endless Wire. A Man In A Purple Dress. Pete Townsend played acoustic guitar and Roger Daltry sang (no one else on stage). One of their more serene, but poignant songs, with which after this one hearing I am impressed.
The Real Me from Quadrophenia was quickly followed with You Better You Bet which of course resulted in the audience responding in the appropriate places.
Pete Townsend stated that he thought that Global Warming was taking place in the Arena. Yes it was hot, even with only a t-shirt (and trousers!) I was very hot, but singing and dancing about does that.
An extended version of My Generation followed and I smiled at the expression on Pete Townsend’s face when he sang “I hope I die before I get old”, clearly meaning he was nowhere like old yet even though he turned 62 last week.
Cry If You Want, Won’t Get Fooled Again, where Roger hit the high notes with his screams a good as ever. Pinball Wizard, Amazing Journey and Sparks rounded up a trio of Tommy songs.
They left the stage to rapturous, applause and cheering. After a short while they returned to the stage and ended the evening with See Me Feel Me and then Roger and Pete alone for the last number Tea and Theatre from Endless Wire. What a night. Thank goodness they decided to continue to tour after the sad loss of John Entwhistle. By the way, Roger is as good as ever with his microphone gymnastics. I think he has added a few new moves.
There is no Substitute for the real thing. Roger and Pete put on a great performance and did their age group proud. Keep on rocking. As an aside, I laughed when I saw that the Daniel O’Donnell Rock n Roll show had been on earlier in the year. Who is he trying to kid?
