Sonicnet review of PNC

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

Available online at:
http://www.sonicnet.com/news/archive/story.jhtml?id=1121720&pid=910070

Who Play, Sing, Joke Like It's The Old Days
Leader Pete Townshend alludes to Friday's stampede tragedy at Pearl Jam show
in
Denmark before playing 'Let's See Action.'
Contributing Editor Frank Tortorici reports:
HOLMDEL, N.J. - Classic-rock legends the Who played, sang and kidded as they
did
in their younger days in a nearly perfect performance Saturday night at the
PNC
Bank Arts Center.
"We'll be the Who again just for you," bandleader Pete Townshend told the
packed
crowd that spanned a wide age range, as he led the band into a blistering
take
on "Bargain" from Who's Next.
The Who also performed a couple of tracks from Townshend's early '70s,
aborted
"Lifehouse" project, which was released in a different form this year as
Lifehouse Elements.
One of the songs, "Let's See Action," came during the encore. Before playing
the
song, Townshend referred to the tragic deaths of concertgoers Friday during
a
Pearl Jam show at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark. A similar experience had
occurred before a Who show in Cincinnati in December 1979, when 11
concertgoers
died in a rush for general admission seats.
"Please the people, audiences/ Break the fences/ Nothing is," lead singer
Roger
Daltrey sang. "Let's see action, let's see people/ Let's see freedom up in
the
air/ Let's see action, let's see people/ Let's be free, let's see who
cares."
Another "Lifehouse" number, "Don't Know Myself," featured Daltrey on
harmonica,
and he shared vocals with Townshend. "Don't pretend you know me, 'cause I
don't
even know myself," the two sang as they grinned at each other.
In recent years, principal songwriter and lead guitarist Townshend has led
his
surviving bandmates, Daltrey and bassist John Entwistle, into staging
re-creations of some of his major works, such as the rock opera
Quadrophenia.
(Original drummer Keith Moon died in 1978.)
Regarding his "We'll be the Who again" statement, Townshend explained that
during the Quadrophenia tour, which featured other artists singing some of
his
compositions, he heard fans in the audience chanting "Be the Who again," as
opposed to touring with others behind a Townshend opus.
During the 2 1/2-hour, sold-out show, part of a handful of dates on which
the
band is playing its best-loved songs, no single Who work was the focus of
attention.
Townshend, dressed in a black-and-white shirt and black pants, did a few of
his
trademark backward leg kicks as he wound his hand like a clock handle gone
haywire to stroke his guitar.
Though he wrote the famous line, "I hope I die before I get old," the
55-year-old Townshend had plenty of life left in him. He often charged to
the
front of the stage wildly, strumming his instrument and knocking sideways
into
frontman Daltrey who stood cockily with his still sculptured torso exposed
under
an unbuttoned blue shirt, when he wasn't twirling his mic around like he did
in
the Who's heyday.
Townshend seemed in good spirits throughout the show, though he asked the
stadium crew crankily and unsuccessfully to turn off the large screens at
the
side of the stage so he could hear better.
He seemed genuinely thrilled with the fans' screaming the words to two Who's
Next classic anthems. During "Baba O' Reilly," the lyric, "Let's get
together
before we get much older" never seemed more apt. "Won't Get Fooled Again"
was
the main set's blistering finale.
Townshend made crunching noises with his guitar, Entwistle's long fingers
assaulted his bass loudly and Zak Starkey pounded the drums rapidly just
like a
great punk-band drummer, or like Moon.
The band - backed by Starkey, the son of Ringo Starr, and keyboardist John
"Rabbit" Bundrick - trotted out a succession of rocking early staples,
including
"I Can't Explain," "Substitute" and "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere". Townshend
said
the last was "a song Roger and I wrote together many years ago back in '65."
Although the lengthy, slow and funky "Magic Bus" Daltrey led the band
through
lacked urgency, he was far better on a rollicking "You Better You Bet," from
Face Dances, the Who's first LP without Moon. It ended with the singer
tripping
over the outstretched hands of a front-row fan. After Daltrey picked himself
off
the stage floor, Townshend mock-whipped the fan with an amp cord.
Entwistle, in a red leather jacket, black pants and red boots, stood to the
side
of his two bandmates except when he took the lead vocal on his primal rocker
"My
Wife," which came early in the set and kept the audience on its feet, where
it
remained until the finale.
"This song is about trying to find yourself in the jungle of life,"
Townshend
said in introducing "The Seeker", which was much louder and harder than the
recorded version, thanks to his slicing guitar work.
Apart from "Let's See Action," the rest of the encore was celebratory.
Daltrey,
on acoustic guitar and sweet harmonic vocals, led the band through a mellow
"The
Kids Are Alright." It all ended close to midnight with a version of the
Who's
signature song, "My Generation", which more closely resembled punk-poet
Patti
Smith's mid-'70s take than it did the band's original.
"[The Who] are holding up better than they were recently," said 29-year-old
Hoboken, N.J., resident Tom Beaujour, who had seen the Quadrophenia tour. "I
think [Townshend] is doing [this tour] 'cause the other guys want to do it,
and
yeah, he wants the money. [But] he should have the right to spend his summer
playing Who songs."

        -Brian in Atlanta
         The Who This Month!
        http://members.home.net/cadyb/who.htm