Right, so last night I went to The Who concert.
I'll admit, I wasn't too excited about going. After all, I had bought the tickets back in July, so while I was excited on the day I bought the tickets, I had kind of forgot about it on the days...months...working up to this date.
But, nonetheless, Ross and I made our way over to GM Place for a night of loud classic rock. I felt a bit bad for Ross, since he was coming with me and didn't know anything about The Who, except that Pete Townshend was charged with kiddie porn or something a few years back (at least I think it was kiddie porn. I should really do my research before I write this crap but I'm going through Turkey withdrawl and can't be fucked). Anywho, Ross also only knew such songs as Who are You, Won't Get Fooled Again...and pretty much any other show featured on CSI. So it wasn't exactly like he was a huge fan, and come to think of it, I'm not really either since my Who albulms consist of The Best of the Who. And that's it. But, I do love every song on that albulm.
But enough of that. On with the concert review.
In one word: Rockstatic! (I know it's not a "real" word, but it's my blog so I can make shit up if I want to.)
The opening act was called Rose Hill Drive, some band that no one has ever heard of. But despite that, they had awesome 70's Rock hair, and an awesome 70's rock sound. They managed to blow out my eardrums, which was good cuz it then didn't hurt so much when The Who came out later. Ross was convinced that it was the former band members of Hanson, if the former members of Hanson had kept on growing their hair from the MMMBop days and had regressed back into Zeplinesque rock.
Then, after the band finished and before The Who came on, the lights came on in the stadium. It was so interesting to see all the different types of people who came to this almost-sold out show (why it wasn't sold out surprises me...perhaps because it fell on the Thanksgiving long weekend. But come on. It's classic, man!). There were little kids, teengaers, aging hippies, seniors, rock chicks, biker dudes, families...there wasn't any demographic that wasn't represented at this show and that suprised me too. For some reason I thought we would be the youngest ones there but how naive that was to assume that my generation wouldn't have found the magic that is The Who.
Let me paint a picture of the atmosphere for you here. Two girls my age to my left. A rock couple in front of us. A mom and her two teen daughters down further. A dancing and ecstatic Kenny Rogers look-alike and his wife, complete with aged leather The Who jacket and a fringed suede jacket for her. Three aging rockers behind us, complete with three fat spliffs and they are smoking all of them at once. The air smells like pot, warm beer and hot lights. The sound is of thousands of people chanting "Whooooooo." (Are they saying Who, or Who-urns? I was saying Who-urns.)
Daltry and Townshend came out in fine form, to the tune of I Can't Explain (with montage of the band in the 60/70's, including Keith Moon and John Entwistle, who died two years ago). As the concert wore on, it was obvious that these old men still knew how to rock your ass off. And even though Daltry and Townshend are the only two surviving members, the subsitutes did a great job. The drummer was none other than Ringo Starr's son, and the guitarist is Townshend's brother.
Daltry, looking spry and fit in his blue jeans and Elton-esque glasses, sang as clear as bell, and kept up to his old antics of swinging the microphone around (many times I thought he was going to smack Townshead, or himself, in the head with it). As for Townshead, he still has got it all in him. Not only did he rip the shit out of that guitar (or guitars, since he changed his guitar about a million times) but his jumping, kicking and famous windmill arm technique were still in action. Especially that windmill arm. It was present in any song that required them to "rock out."
Townshend, back in the day.
If curious, check out some short, shaky and shoddy footage of Teenage Wasteland/Baba O'Rielly.
Highlights of the night included the last song of the night, Won't Get Fooled Again, which I think was worth the price of admission alone. Just the way that Daltry screamed his gruff "yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" just before the end (Meet the new boss/same as the old boss) sent shivers down my spine. It was like he hadn't changed since they last went on tour, 20 years ago.
Then of course, there was an encore, which was epic in itself. A combination of Pinball Wizard (thank GOD, since I ws get distraught that I hadn't heard it played yet), Sparks (which is my favourite Who song, ever since hearing it on the Almost Famous soundtrack) and finally See me Feel Me. It left the audience singing their hearts out and waving their lighters and cell phones in the air.
The Verdict: The Who doesn't act a day over 1975. And my ears are still ringing. It was impressive, indeed.
***
Next up: The Rolling Stones on November 3rd, with opening act Van Morrison. Yay!
