John interview in Denver Post

["Brian Cady" <cadyb@home.com>]

Legendary band reunited for U.S. tour
Who:The Who, with UnAmerican opening
Where: Pepsi Center, Auraria Parkway at Speer Boulevard
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday
Tickets: $128.50, $78.50, $53.50, $38.50 reserved, through Ticketmaster
(303-830-8497)

By G. Brown
Denver Post Popular Music Writer

August 20, 2000 - Long live rock.

The Who - guitarist Pete Townshend, lead singer Roger Daltrey and bassist
John Entwistle - have reunited for the band's first major North American
tour in four years, and its first as a five-piece since 1982.

Drummer Zak Starkey (Ringo Starr's son) and keyboardist John "Rabbit"
Bundrick, both of whom toured with the Who on 1996's "Quadrophenia" arena
outing, will also be on board at the Pepsi Center Thursday night.

On past Who reunion tours, "It's been like "The Who Orchestra,' at least 14
people on the stage, so it's probably (good) just letting us play together
as a fivepiece," Entwistle said. "I still like more eye contact on stage.
Maybe I should start walking down the stage saying, "Hey, look at me!"

Now that would be something to see. The Who's '60s concerts were a
continuous melee - the members dressed ornately, destroyed their instruments
and pioneered rock music as spectacle with Daltrey's microphone lassoing,
Townshend's windmills and the late Keith Moon's drumstick twirls.

The only stationary object on stage was the impassive Entwistle.

"Unfortunately, it's a vicious circle," he says. "At the moment, I've got
equipment that's very directional, so that Roger can't hear me. I don't want
him to - otherwise he's going to get put off by the volume. So my gear is
only loud when you stand in front of it - I could be playing in a different
damn key if I'm standing in the middle of the stage.

"So now that I can move around, I can't!" The reunion tour has fueled
speculation that the Who may record new material. Townshend has said it's
high time that he and Daltrey collaborate: "Roger and I have never written a
song together, and that's what we're going to try to do. We're in our
mid-50s - if we can't do it now, we never will." Entwistle, 55, won't rule
out the possibility.

"We intend to go in the studio and see if we can actually work there. It's
certainly working on stage," he says. "I believe that a lot is going to come
out of the live improvisations, that we'll find a common denominator there
and work out songs on that basis."

The classic-rock legends have taken part in the Internet revolution by
releasing an album over the Web. "The Blues to the Bush" was recorded last
year during live performances that the Who gave at Chicago's House of Blues
and London's Shepherd's Bush Empire (hence the album title). It features Who
classics like "Won't Get Fooled Again" and "Substitute."

Or maybe not. A company called Musicmaker.com lets fans create their own
versions of the album, selecting the songs they want in the order they
prefer (Musicmaker sends a custom CD the next day).

"I think it works. It's kind of weird that people weren't actually given the
album. You basically got whatever you asked for. There's a lot of vocalizing
between songs which isn't on there," Entwistle says.

"We've brought back a few songs like "The Kids Are Alright' and "Anyway,
Anyhow, Anywhere' and "The Seeker.' Back in the day, if you had a single,
you played it for a little while (in concert) and then dropped it when it
became passe."

Those songs are also highlights of another "new" live album - "BBC Sessions"
has been officially released, the bulk of the Who's '60s and '70s recordings
for British radio. The sessions were one take, no overdubs, and the sound is
rather flat. But it suggests how great the Who's blueprint for rock was.

"The BBC had "needle time,' a musicians union thing - they couldn't let you
play records for very long without playing live music. So a lot of bands had
to actually go into the BBC and record stuff live," Entwistle explains.
"It's a lot of what we did over years until they relaxed the rules."

On tour, the Who is also performing "Let's See Action" and a couple of other
tracks from Townshend's abandoned "Lifehouse" project. Back in 1971, he put
everything he had into his unfinished rock opera, a futuristic tale in which
society has become a slave to computers and music no longer exists. Plans
for the project called for then-new synthesizers, a companion film that
would feature the Who recording live and music created through experiments
with audience members.

It seemed so rash and foolish that the other band members asked Townshend to
drop it - no one could understand the story's complex plot and themes.

"We couldn't see Pete's vision," Entwistle says. "We did a thing at the
Young Vic Theatre - he thought we should actually live along with our
audience and get to know them as people. It was a strange concept to me - we
pulled an audience in off the street, and it got to 6 or 7 in the evening,
and they had to go home for their tea! It wasn't exactly a live-in
situation.

"I think it's a little ambitious now, let alone back then." But now
Townshend's fable about the dangers of choosing entertainment over art seems
surprisingly apt. Almost 30 years after it was conceived, "Lifehouse"
premiered in December as a radio play on BBC Radio. Townshend recently
performed the project with the London Chamber Orchestra in England, where it
drew critical acclaim.

Copyright 2000 The Denver Post. All rights reserved.

        -Brian in Atlanta
         The Who This Month!
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