Monday, December 11, 2006

Yyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

Awesome. The Who can still rock. I'm always wary of any arena rock tour because they seem pretty impersonal to me, as opposed to a small club where you can see the whites of the band's eyes from anywhere in the place. But I have to say, they put together an amazing light show befitting of the arena surroundings. And they had lots of big screens so you could usually see close-ups of Pete and Roger doing their things. Roger said he had a bad cold, and he did shy away from the high notes mostly, but that raspy voice was still plenty powerful. And Pete still has plenty of guitar windmills left in him.

They played a good mix of new songs from their latest, Endless Wire, and the old classics. The new stuff was good, and to my surprise I have to say that one of the high points was the very last song of the night, a quiet rendition of Tea & Theatre with only Pete and Roger onstage and Pete playing the acoustic guitar. Townshend played accoustic on several of the newer songs.

But man, the old standbys were a-smokin'! Pinball Wizard was Good, Behind Blue Eyes was Better, the long, long jam in the middle of My Generation was Even Better, and Won't Get Fooled Again proved once and for all that it's the Greatest Rock-n-Roll Song Of All Time: nee nee nee nee NEE NEE NEE NEE ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum ba-dum-dum ba-dum dum YYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! You get the picture.

And the perfect concert moment of pure joy: When they hit their stride about a third of the way into the show with Baba O'Riley. Something about that flowing synth just makes me happy!

3 comments:

pete. said...

Isn't it a relief when the greats don't let you down? Glad you had fun, sounds like a blast.

Anonymous said...

Don't forget Emminence Front!

jonnynono said...

I can't even believe I forgot Emminence Front. Supercool! I Can't Explain how I forgot that one!