Twenty-four years ago this week, I saw The Who give their farewell concert on pay-per view. Home-based pay-per-view seemed pretty novel. Even in the years following that farewell concert, fans would jam theaters and arenas for closed-ciruit TV broadcasts of wrestling, boxing, and concerts. But we had the luxury of watching this event at home. My oldest brother, and some of his high-school friends, pooled resources to watch. The cable company charged $10, which my brother earnestly informs me was a lot of money in those days. Being nine, I sponged. HBO rebroadcast that Toronto concert ad infinitum as a reminder to me that, by accident of a late birth, I had missed my opportunity to see The Who live. Oh, the injustice!
Nearly a quarter-century after The Who's farewell concert from Toronto, I have seen The Who a half-dozen times or so. I caught The Who, perhaps for the last time, this past weekend at the new Boston Garden (I stopped keeping track of its ever-changing corporate name). Only two remain, as their show-closer Tea & Theatre reminds, but I'm so grateful that they carried on so that people my age and younger could get to see them. The Who and their older fans, I'm sure, are grateful that they carried on if just to remind all these seemingly respectable people who they were thirty years ago.
The Who came on my radar screen when I was very young. In 1979, I had heard that teenagers ripped apart the local movie house that screened the film The Kids Are Alright. Teenagers, who seemed more ominous and menacing in the late '70s, tore out seats, fought, and engaged in general mayhem as the movie played. That this occured shortly after the overdose death of drummer Keith Moon, and the horrible stampede that left eleven dead at a Cincinnati Who concert, probably heightened interest my in The Who. Friends also apprised me that the Guiness Book of World Records considered The Who the loudest band of all time. All this and they smashed their instruments--or at least they did at one time.
Anarchy on drums, thunder on bass, a ball of energy as a frontman, and an angry young man writing the songs, The Who amplified a loud, agressive sound. Their collection of songs was as diverse as Roger Daltrey's haircuts: anthems (My Generation, Long Live Rock, Join Together), novelty pieces (I'm a Boy, Squeeze Box), 150-second pop songs (The Kids Are Alright, Substitute). They offered everything save the thing every other band offered: the love song. Along with the unique music came iconic rock imagery: Pete Townshend's windmill guitar, Roger Daltrey wildly swinging the microphone, Keith Moon kicking over his drum kit. The Who (along with The Kinks) gave us the power chord, invented something called the "rock opera," inspired punks, issued the most rock line in all of rock ("I hope I die before I get old"), played Woodstock and Monterey Pop, trashed hotel rooms, and, if you believe Pete Townshend, "were the first band to vomit in the bar and find the distance to the stage too far." Elvis sang songs for you to fall in love to. The Stones played songs for you to party to. Pink Floyd played songs for you to hallucinate to. The Who played songs for you to beat people up to. The Who epitomized the music of youth--alienated youth, which is the spirit of rock n roll all the way back to Rock Around the Clock in Blackboard Jungle. Perhaps that is why Who music survived when The Who didn't. It's timeless because the supply of teenagers is endless.
"What's all this about?," I thought after hearing about the mayhem unleashed by local teenage Who fans. I listened to The Beatles, and couldn't comprehend anyone reacting to their music in such a violent manner. Who were these Who guys? A few years later, with the proceeds from my paper route, I picked up Pete Townshend's All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes (along with Men at Work's Business As Usual) as my first record purchase (although in those days we bought tapes, not records). My older brothers, captives of the previous age, still bought actual records, and like The Who pay-per-view event, I sponged off their collection. More than just a tale of mods and rockers, Quadrophenia seemed the soundtrack for teenagers everywhere. I took in The Kids Are Alright, Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy, Hooligans, and so many other "hits" collections that, unfortunately, mar the Who catalogue. Even It's Hard, with its overdone, period synthesizers and updated cover of a Tommy-like kid playing a video game instead of a pinball machine, spun in constant rotation on my cellar's turntable. With Pete Townshend constantly shouting, "I want my MTV" on ads for the channel, The Who seemed very current to me in 1982. But then, amidst some severe drug problems from Townshend and with Daltrey complaining about replacement drummer Kenney Jones's play, they broke up. Like most kids experiencing the music drought of the early 1980s, I had a favorite group that no longer existed.
But as the song says, breaking up is hard to do. The Who returned for a massive tour in 1989, and I jumped at the chance to see them at one of their two sold-out shows at Sullivan Stadium (or was it Schaeffer Stadium or Foxboro Stadium?). It was my first concert, and the parking-lot atmosphere couldn't be beat--except by the concert itself. We were fifteen, and the concert-goers had no problem selling us beers, giving us beers, drinking beers with us. It was great. For the first time, my friends and I did not fear the police chasing us for drinking. The concert experience, I learned, was only experienced in part inside the venue.
I remember Love Reign O'er Me, Who Are You, and Won't Get Fooled Again as show highlights. Accompanying the latter track, during the keyboard parts, were a couple of jumbotrons with the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack dancing and meshing, and then, when the drums kicked in, projecting an unforgettable tribute to Keith Moon. The sound of each drum coincided with an individual still picture of the fallen drummer. He wasn't there, but you felt as though he watched over it all.
Eight years later, I heard that The Who would be playing Quadrophenia, my favorite Who album, that night at Nissan Pavilion in Virginia. I was no longer a high-school student. I was part of the work force, and far from home. I lobbied co-workers to go, but got no takers. "The Who?" I would not be denied. I went solo, along with a six-pack of Bud and a pack of Swisher Sweets. The tailgating action seemed a lot less festive than I remembered it in the late '80s. Gestapo-like security patrolled the parking lot in golf carts, confiscating beer and generally hassling concert goers. I asked the people in the next space if I could have a plastic cup. Coldly, with a stack of cups in plain view, they said "No." Fearing beer confiscation, I got out one of my Marine canteens and drank from it. Not only did I have the satisfaction of keeping my beer, but I also witnessed the beer Gestapo confiscate a case of beer from the misers who refused my petition for a plastic cup. Karma. Instant.
Something had happened in the eight years in which I had last seen Pete, Roger, and John. At Foxboro, 60,000 people crammed in to see a group that hadn't released an album in seven years, and then they did the same thing two nights later. In Virginia, the 15,000-capacity amphitheater didn't even sell out. I listened to radio regularly, but hadn't heard about The Who concert until a few hours before the opening notes. Classic rock, especially classic rock radio stations, had diminished in the 1990s. But, specifically, so had interest in The Who. They stopped releasing albums with the unfairly maligned It's Hard, and they refused to keep up with touring every few years as had their contemporaries The Rolling Stones. The audiences, predictably, shrank. I kept going.
I converted my wife into a Who fan at one such show. Apart from the powerhouse live set, Roger Daltrey's fountain-of-youth looks impressed her. I dealt with a personal tragedy immediately before a Who concert (a few weeks after The Who had experienced the tragedy of losing bassist John Entwhisle) in the Fall of 2002, and experienced catharsis by going to the show. And, lo and behold, last weekend, with money tight, a free Who ticket--via my brother via a client via Clear Channel--drops in my lap.
It was the fifth or sixth time I had seen The Who since their official "break-up" when I was nine. I caught Eminence Front live for the first time (If that opening doesn't give you chills, then you might not be alive). The Seeker was another blast-from-the-past surprise. An extended version of My Generation, that included the It's Hard deep cut Cry If You Want, made for a highlight, especially with the accompanying "My Generation" video of sixties youth interspersed with, what appeared to be, tribal dancing from the African bush, punk rockers slam dancing, youth warrior rituals from Polynesia, breakdancing from the ghetto. Everyone's got a generation, I guess, was the message. The live audience seemed rather, well, live. All that exposure from CSI, movie soundtracks, Paul O'Neill approaching the plate, and car ads revitalized interest in The Who.
What made the show so special is that, for the first time since that '82 farewell tour, The Who tour in support of a new album. Having seen the "greatest hits" tours, I welcomed the chance to catch fresh material. The Who didn't disappoint--me, at least. They played ten songs off the new album. Man in a Purple Dress and Tea & Theatre, done with Townshend and Daltrey sans backing band, were excellent. Ten brand-new songs is a pretty bold move, particularly when faced with a "greatest hits" crowd.
This was not the audience that tore apart the local theater when they screened a Who movie in '79. Or, maybe it was--just a lot older. In front of me were two fiftysomething women: one balding, the other really overweight. They jumped, danced, and sang their voices hoarse. A few rows in front of them, two other ladies--apparently not having got the memo that arenas don't allow smoking any longer--sparked up several joints (They inhaled.). Maybe they thought such anti-smoking edicts did not apply to marijuana. I glimpsed one fat, bald, graying, bearded man escorting his grade-school-age son about the arena. The middle-aged trappings appeared to me as disguises for the people that they were thirty years ago. So this is what happens to rowdy teenagers from the 1970s? It would be as silly and unnatural for these people to tear apart the arena as it would be for Pete Townshend to continue to smash his guitar. But Pete Townshend used to smash his guitar. And these people who surrounded me, I suspected, used to tear theaters apart. I didn't let their graying appearance--the fans' or The Who's--fool me. Neither did the management of the arena. They shut the beer off at 9:30 p.m, just a half hour after The Who took the stage. Our reputations, apparently, had preceded us.
Loved and love the Who. I admire their embrace of their age. Aged rockers doing their best to carry on like twenty-somethings are just sad. "Dude looks like a grandma" now.
I think ladies smoking dope are already in a rule-breaking frame of mind.
As a younger fan I am not able to truly appreciate the atmosphere The Who created years ago. So, thanks for the insight old man.
Yes this, unfortunately, IS what happens to the rowdy teenagers of the 70’s! Was one myself when I saw them live at the old Music Hall (Wang Center) in 71’ and it was like you read about: high hazy boisterous crowd, nasty vibes between Daltrey and Townshend, out of control Moon and stoic Entwhistle. At concert’s end, not an unmolested instrument in sight.
It’s interesting that someone of your generation is such and ardent fan. Shows you know good rock when you hear it and the unprecedented length and detail of this blog entry proves how enamored you are with this band. Music like the WHO’s does not connect with everyone.
I’m pi$$ed that I missed this concert but heard from many of my friends who attended that the remaining (albeit, most important?) members of the WHO have not lost it. By all accounts, the aging hippies who were there raved about Daltrey and Townshend and were impressed with their timeless energy and sometimes soft acoustic interpretations. Starkey’s drumming got high marks as well. Also, nice to hear the Pretenders made a splash too.
