Hyde Park -- the Nomadic Report (long)

     These are the Who-related excerpts of my 6/26-30 trip
to & from England. No names have been changed to protect the
guilty; despite a diligent search we were unable to find
anyone arguably "innocent" ...

     During the overnight flight we listened to a tape
prepared for an e-friend in England. She's getting a copy of
this review, so I'm not going to say anything further for
the moment ... Instead,  "we're gonna [write] a tribute
right, now, to one of the greatest rock 'n' roll bands of
all time, THE WHO!!!!!!!" Here we go:

     Upon arrival at London/Gatwick, we zipped through the
North & South Terminals to find the travel rep ("TRep"), who
was suitably flustered that I barreled past their "meet and
greet" crew at the gate. I explained that my goal for the
airport is to get *out* as quickly as possible; formalties
are appreciated but really just get in the way. We then had
the following exchange:

TRep: What do you 'ave planned for London?

NRep ["Nomadic Reporter"]: Actually, I'm here to see a 
                                              concert ...

TRep: Oh, really? Wonderful! Which one -- at the Royal
           Albert Hall?

NRep: No -- The Prince's Trust festival on Saturday.

TRep: YOU MEAN YOU 'AVE TICKETS TO SEE THE
           'OO ?!?!?!?!  'AT'S THE HOTTEST TICKET IN
           TOWN -- THEY SOLD OUT 150,000 IN TWO 
           DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

     After reviving and calming the TRep, we boarded the
bus and headed for the central district. Our hotel was in
Kensington High Street, about 1.5 miles from Hyde Park. 
Good location ... Then came the first *bad* decision --
to take a nap instead of tending to business. Five hours
later, we decided to wander the London twilight. Taking
camera in hand, we headed for the elevator and close
encounters of the best kind ...

     At the elevator, we noticed an excellent photo 
opportunity of the London skyline, partially obscured by
window blinds. No problem. Grabbing the cord, we hoisted the
blinds and snapped the skyline. Upon releasing the cord, it
*stuck* and looking down, the cord was twisted around a fire
extinguisher. We lowered the blinds until the cord was taut,
and turned to the elevator. At that moment, a draft of cool
air swept the corridor -- could've been the breeze -- and I
felt an arm drape around my shoulder. But there was no arm
to be seen besides my own ... and a voice said "go ahead,
mate -- finish the job!" As if possessed, I watched my hand
reach for the cord and give it a good Yankee pull ...

WHOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

     Wandering the London twilight suddenly seemed a *very*
good idea. We escaped detection & capture, and Keith seemed
quite pleased -- "I heard him exclaim as he faded from
sight, 'AVE A GOOD TIME IN THE PARK & ROCK IT ALL 
NIGHT!"

     Cautiously returning late that night, we left early the
next morning and spent the day touring the countryside
outside London (Salisbury, Stonehenge & Bath). That night,
we ventured out again to map the route to the Hyde Park
concert area. Walked into & around the park, checking
against the map on the ticket. Big park. Biiiiiggggg park.
Also turned out to be Kensington Gardens -- the wrong park. 

     Crossing the street into Hyde Park, we soon saw the
tell-tale line of portajohns and the concert area fenceline.
Good 'nuff. About an hour's leisurely walk from the hotel.
Not as good as my plans for MSGarden (across the street at
the Pennsylvania Hotel for that one), but not bad. And I can
always use the exercise ...

     Saturday dawned like every other day that week --
breezy & overcast, temps in the mid-60's to around 70.
Donning the promised attire (JAE tourshirt & headband cut
from an old Who shirt), we hiked to Hyde Park. Seeing the
pre-show chatter about the "Pete's Quad vs. WHO reunion,"
the first stop was a vendor for a copy of the Daily Mirror.
The cover starts with "LOOK WHO'S BACK ... Townshend,
Daltrey and co. get ready to rock the park." The picture of
Pete & guitar has a subcaption "Quadrophenia brought back to
Life: pages 12 & 13." We start flipping pages ...

     The banner across those pages screams "Quad A Line-Up"
The Who return to make history." 

          Pete Townshend cheerfully admits that
          today is either going to be a glittering
          triumph or an unmitigated disaster.
               "It could be complete chaos ... I see
          it as a chance to do something more 
          adventurous than strum on my own."
          ...
          "Today amounts to a Who reunion, but
          not in the traditional sense," [Pete]
          explains. "We're not trying to compete
          with new bands like Blur or Oasis -- we
          just want to do something different."

          [Pete] is typically modest about his
          group's contribution to rock 'n' roll. "The
         Who were a fantastic band, but they were
          really one of the second-league bands
          and I'm not running myself down by that
          ... We were an important band, but there
          were more important ones."          
          
          Bassist John "The Ox" Entwistle adds:
          "I'm always nervous before a show. A few
           mistakes will probably be made, but we 
           always laugh at our own mistakes. I always
           play my mistakes twice!"

     Perusing the shirt collection, alongside the Dylan,
Clapton, Morrissette and "Masters of Music" shirts is a
light charcoal model. The front is a full-color rendition of
the Quad album cover. Down to the same four faces in the
mirrors. The left sleeve has the original nuclear hazard
symbol with "Hyde Park" across the top and "029.06.96"
across the bottom. I'll be wearing it at MSGarden. The back
of the shirt has the hazard in red, white & blue and says:

                     Q U A D R O P H E N I A

                                    T H E

                                   W H O

        Roger                   John                   Pete
       Daltrey                 Entwistle         Townshend

                          With Special Guests
                                  In Concert

     *Now* we're getting somewhere ...

     The official program[me] had a complete list of players
& other participants for all the bands. Only John & Pete had
bios; plus a snapshot of Roger riding a Suzuki motorbike.
John's bio was more-or-less copied from "The Rock" tour
program. Pete's emphasized his interest in contemporary
musicals since about 1986. The supporting cast for The Who
included: 

     Zak Starkey..........................drums
     John "Rabbit" Bundrick........keyboards
     Jon Carin...............................keyboards
     Jody Linscott.........................percussion
     Geoff Whitehorn...................guitar
     Simon Townshend................guitar
     Billy Nicholls..........................backing vocals
     Suzy Webb
     Sonia Jones
     Peter Howith
     Neil Sidwell...........................brass
     Simon Gardner
     Paul Spong
     Steve Sidwell
     Andy Fawbert

     The festival itself featured a deep stage that
accommodated two band sets at a time -- the front act
playing while one of the headliners was setting up
backstage. The "front acts" consisted of several sets from a
composite "Rock School Band" of musicians being assisted
through the Trust, and two bands that started with the trust
and are now playing professionally around the U.K. During
the first set, the RSBand played "Pinball Wizard" as a
tribute to The Who. A couple of observations here -- first,
it took guts for them to try it. Second, their cover showed
the difference between a *great* band playing their song and
a technically-proficient-but-otherwise-mediocre band trying
to cover it. "Hesitation" is one way to describe the result.
But they deserve a lot of credit for caring enough to make
the effort.

     First headline act was Jools Holland's "Rhythm & Blues
Orchestra." Kinda blues, kinda jazz. Proficient, but not
what a rock 'n' roll crowd came to see & hear. Maybe at a
sleepy little club afterwards, but ...

     Next up was Alanis Morrissette, playing her 12x
platinum album and some songs she wrote before anyone cared.
Again, a proficient job within her genre. Musing to one
side, it may be that U2 will receive the same kind of credit
as the Beatles for pioneering a distinctive subcategory of
popular music. In this case, the introduction of
Celtic-Gaelic-oh-what-the-h*ll-just-call-it-all-"bardic"
styles of rhythm and storytelling. I might be more impressed
if I knew the album, but today she impressed me mostly as
some kind of epileptic wood nymph running around the stage.
Mostly mumbling incantations and occasionally saying "thank
you very much."  Given some time, patience and ... well,
never mind. Alanis might enchant me some day ... but not
today.

     Next up is Bob Dylan, with Ronnie Wood on second
guitar. I've seen a number of Dylan's shows dating to the
mid-'80's and was singularly unimpressed until I saw his
"rock with Electric Bob" tours that started about five years
ago. Anyway, this was good stuff -- combination of acoustic
and electric numbers, with both Dylan and Wood relaxed in
the role of third string today. 

     Between bands, I wandered around the concert area
marveling at how cheap the burgers are ... might have
something to do with the "mad cow" thing ... come to think
of it, I was pretty much a vegetarian during the trip ... On
several occasions, English and particularly German fans came
up & asked about the JAE tourshit: "John's got a band?
What's it called?  Are they good?  Got any albums out?
Where can I get one?  Are they ever goin' to tour Europe?"
While trying to be upbeat, I leave the detailed followup to
folks at Bitsa ... I would note that Germany has been a sort
of "jumping-off point" for embryonic bands on the Continent
since the Beatles in Hamburg. Most recently, Deep Purple and
Rainbow have had successful resurrection tours for their new
material. Might be worth remembering somewhere ...

     Also found some angst about the format of the show:
"What's it with Pete? Don't  'e understand that these people
paid their money 'coz they want to see The 'oo?  Don't
150,000 people crowdin' a cold & windy park mean anythin'?"
Apparently some of  the media -- like some of the online
community -- might have characterized the show as Pete's
one-man ego trip with Roger & John as bit players like
everyone else. "Anxiety" doesn't exactly describe my mood,
but I think I understood the point. These are kids in their
twenties, without a band to remind them how life s*cks but
it's still worth something just to carry on. Guess we're
lucky we had one, eh?

     This brings us to showtime. I'd been hanging about
halfway back, but yielded to temptation and moved up to
roughly even with the sound/light tower and the edge of
reserved seating. Gave me a clear view of the stage as well
as the big screens, but it proved a generally fatal error on
the taping side of things because the crowd could -- and
most often would -- drown out the stage sound from my
microphone's point of view. Oh, well ... also happened to
look over the reserved seating area, to check out the
package I decided to pass. Been there, done the pseudo-VIP
thing. Better to be in the crowd if only for the feeling --
paraphrasing Roger, "feets are made for standin' on!" I'm
also close enough to see that Jody Linscott will be pounding
her percussion with a Union Jack draped alongside, and Zak's
double bass drums are capped with the old roundels of the
RAF. Lookin' good ... 

     Next sensation is a slowly growing roar from 150,000
throats as the screens converge above center stage and the
announcer bellows "QUADROPHENIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Instead of simply the sea & sand with outtakes from the
album tracks, this is different and much, much better --
mixed with the album intro is an audio-video collage of The
Who, reminiscent of Ozzy Osbourne's 1992 tour -- still shots
and video clips of live performances together with sound
clips from the singles. Phil Daniels then overtones "I
though' I was 'em, back in '64" ... and we thunder into "The
Real Me."

     As the 150,000 screaming, fist-shaking fans saturate my
microtape into oblivion, a couple of other thoughts pass
through the mind's eye: Roger's bulls-eye patch has been
discussed already, but if Pete still wants some feedback
here it is: the sound board needs to be configured with a
10db booster switch for each of Roger's, Pete's and the
guest-singer of-the-moment's microphones. On at least three
occasions, the mic was set for background when someone
started a lead and it took a line for the soundman to
adjust. So either the soundman has to wake up, or it needs
to be push-button simple.

     Other thoughts: same horn lineup as the 1989 tour, but
a vastly superior mix. At least today, the horns stayed
behind and mostly below the band where they belong. Zak was
just superb, and The Ox ran wild on '5:15" in a manner
reminiscent of his recent jaunts for The Rock. Both Geoff
Whitehorn and David Gilmour did an excellent job on lead
guitar -- particularly Whitehorn -- and Rabbit put the keys
where they belong. Pete played only acoustic guitar and
piano. Someone accurately described him as subdued early on
- -- I'd say hesitant -- but the crowd, Zak and John had
everything fired up before long and Pete joined the party in
full swing.

     One side note on Roger -- we've chatted about the
patch, and I noticed that it apparently hindered his depth
perception enough to dampen the mic-twirling considerably.
At least in the beginning, his voice clearly weakened a bit
in the high end. The backup girls were a good addition to
maintain the upper-end echo effect.

      We previously mentioned the encore of "5:15" and the
fact that the Prince showed up to see The Who and then left.
One highlight I want to mention -- the entire day was
overcast and windy, temps at 70 or less. But as the band
started "Love reign O'er Me" the clouds began to break --
not completely; just enough for scattered sunbeams to break
through behind & to John's side of the stage. Maybe the
Prince wasn't the only high-ranking official to be pleased
with the show ...

     As the top billing, poor EC didn't have a chance. His
sound was fantastic and the playing was superb -- but
laid-back blues just doesn't follow The Who in a festival.
The crowd started leaving after about 45 minutes to an hour.
Aftershow I met Todd, Paul & his friend from Amsterdam (a
fabulous Who-babe in every respect!!) and the Vancouver
contingent plus our new (although not yet e-mail enabled)
friend Stephan from Germany. We marched down Bayswater
looking for -- and eventually finding -- a pub to talk about
the festival, life in general and The Who in particular.
Closing down the pub, we hung around the street talking some
more until the proprietor asked us to move because we "were
making the bobbies nervous." Hardcore Who fans making cops &
shopkeepers a bit nervous after dark? Happy to be of service
... 

     Walking down the streets, we eventually went separate
ways and your correspondent sneaked back into the hotel.
Others may disagree, but the trip provided everything I was
looking for. And then some ... As Pete said after
introducing the band, "this was a grand experiment -- we'll
just have to do it again!" See y'all at MSGarden on July
16th ...

Keeping the Faith, 

Bob