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This is a short interview, but Roger Daltrey has a unique way of expressing himself.
When asked if they will do any shows after their current tour Daltrey told NME: “We seriously don’t know if we’ll ever play again after this tour. People at our age have been popping their clogs [over the last year] so let’s just get real here, where we are in our lives."
"popping their clogs" - never heard that one before. I'm going to start using it!
I had older brothers, so I had always been exposed to rock music, but when I was just a girl, my best friend and I watched Tommy about a dozen times and that was my first real introduction to a band I was really into. I immersed myself into The Who. They'll always have a special meaning for me. Nothing at all to do with my HUGE crush on Roger Daltrey, either.
I found The Who terribly underrated. As absurd as that sounds, I just hate reading again and again about the genius of Floyd, the visceral sound of Zeppelin, etc. etc.…but when it comes to The Who they are always seem to be trapped in a middle between The Stones and whatever came after; slightly more popular than The Kinks, never to surpass The Beatles. But I find The Who a better band than they are given credit for. Pete Townsend lyrics, at least for me, are far superior to anything McCartney-Lennon did; his lyrics capture all the amalgam of human emotions from illogicality to depression to silliness. Their string of albums Sell Out, Tommy, Who’s Next, Quadrophenia, By Numbers, is a force to be reckoned with. Then you have a sound, a very specific sound that is unique to them and the characters of that band. I have never heard any one play bass or drums as Entwistle and Moon did it respectively; I’d go as far as saying that they would not have worked in any other band.
The phrase “best rock band of all time” is often thrown around in disregard, but when it comes to The Who, they got really really close to attain the title.
These days I'm not inclined to leave the house to see bands that I saw prior to and up to their peak. The *most* I ever paid to see Led Zeppelin or The Who was like $7.50 and that was when both were firing on all cylinders. Nostalgia is powerful - extraordinarily so and bands have noticed that so I can't blame them for wanting to leverage that. I think The Who was always incredibly entertaining and funny. I remember laughing my a$$ off listening to the stage banter between Moon and everyone else. And then he would start off a song with some wild drum fill that never really ended until the song was over. And even then he might finish 2 seconds after the rest of the band but it somehow worked. That was his style and it also depended on how drunk he was. And then Roger's voice was always fantastic. But haven't seen them since the 70s and prefer to keep those memories intact.
It was a good concert, however we had to wait because the tapes of the Lowrey Organ that starts plays throughout Baba O'Riley malfunctioned before they even started and we had to wait about fifteen minutes before it was ready.
I say tapes because no one was visibly playing it onstage, if in fact it ever was onstage to begin with.
Two key members of The Who are gone.
IMO it should be billed as "Roger Daltrey And Pete Townshend blah blah blah".
My real concern with the title of this article though is that it implies that this may be our very last chance to see them, so you better go fill up the place.
Although I'm not sure of the exact numbers, how many people have had more than one farewell concert, only to have yet another one?
The Rolling Stones as well.
I remember one Rolling Stone cover story over a couple of decades ago that basically boiled down to...
"Is It Finally Curtains For The Stones?".
Mick and Keith finally patched things up so you better hurry before they change their minds again, without actually spelling that out, of course.
Whether true or not, the Stones have used that angle more than once, even if it wasn't really mentioned in the title of an article.
After their breakup, one of the Eagles stated that they will only tour again when hell freezes over.
Sometime after that, they toured.
I couldn't have been the only one who immediately thought upon hearing about the yet unnamed tour,
"Well, I guess hell must have froze over, huh?".
They even tried to gloss over it by calling it something to the effect of " Hell Freezes Over Tour"
Granted, no one can predict the future as to if they will be able to swing another tour, health or otherwise, but I think fans of all acts should be able to hold on to their "farewell" ticket stubs and use them to get in free (or at least a good faith discount) to any and all subsequent "Farewell Tours", as it's the artist that really fares-well...after all, it is called "Show Busine$$".
Legally or ethically, you should only get to label one tour as your "Farewell Tour", choose wisely.
Frankly, and I don't mean this in any nasty way, The Who have been dead to me for 35 years now.
One could argue that they were never the same without Keith Moon; the chaos he brought to his kit was integral to their sound. However, many bands lose a member but manage to keep going and even get better (i.e. the Stones in 1969), so on paper, The Who seemed viable without Moon. The last two albums were relatively dreary though, and they "broke up".
When they reconvened in 1989, they were purely a nostalgia act, resurrecting old albums to play in concert. I had no interest in the Who as nostalgia; their most immediate pleasure was how vital and vigorous their peak-era recordings were. If that was over, then what was the use?
Then Entwistle died. For me, that was the final nail. I know Pete and Roger think they were the Who, but Entwistle's bass was just as important as Townshend's guitar to their sound, plus he did sing lead on some memorable songs. There was just no way I could accept a duo of Roger and Pete as "The Who" any more than Paul and Ringo as "The Beatles"
Then, in 2005, there appeared a weird album that said "The Who" on the jacket, but it turned out to be one of those convoluted Pete Townshend solo albums with some old croaker named Roger singing it. Whatever that was, it sure wasn't any Who I knew...
I love the music the Who left us in the 60's and 70's (I am still going around telling people that The Who were the greatest singles band of the 60's; even if they had split before Tommy, they'd still be remembered as much as, say, The Yardbirds) But if it wasn't over in 1978, 1982, 1989, 2002, or 2005, then there is scant evidence of it.
I'm happy if Pete and Roger want to work together and give shows together, but honesty? I went through my grieving process for The Who long ago.
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