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Mars Music review from Palm Beach Post



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The Who older, wiser, but its music stills snarls, thrills

By Larry Aydlette, Palm Beach Post Arts Writer
Tuesday, September 26, 2000

By the second song, Roger Daltrey was swinging his microphone into dangerous
arcs and loops, his white shirt wide open to display his still-amazing,
Adonis-like physique. Pete Townshend executed little rabbit leaps into the
air,
thrashing and windmilling his arms across the strings of his electric
guitar.
John Entwistle, of course, stood completely still.

Is there anything more beautiful than The Who in concert?

For more than two hours Sunday night at MARS Music Amphitheatre, the guys
who
created some of the most iconic moments in rock history picked up their
guitars
and played -- just like yesterday. Billed as a "greatest hits" revue, it
ended
up being much, much more.

After years of performing with big orchestras, The Who are finally back to
being
The Who -- that snarling, punkish band with plenty of youthful attitude and
British cheek. The group is a tight five pieces -- with keyboards by
longtime
compatriot John "Rabbit" Bundrick and powerful, shades-of-Keith Moon drums
by
Zak Starkey (yep, Ringo's son. He even has a cute '60s moptop haircut.)

And despite the well-documented flare-ups between Daltrey and Townshend over
the
years, they seemed to be having a great time, telling silly one-liners and
feeding off the energy of a wildly appreciative audience. The show's
club-like
set created a surprisingly intimate nature, with the band members close
enough
that Townshend had to occasionally duck when Daltrey would toss his mike.

But what made the evening more than a heady nostalgia trip was the band's
searing intensity. It's hard to talk about highlights, because there simply
wasn't a low moment in the 20-song set. Early songs like I Can't Explain,
Substitute and Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere have such a primal, three-chord feel
that they never grow old, and The Who jammed with unbelievable squall and
fury.

They even threw in some less than greatest hits for the faithful --
Townshend's
riveting acoustic solo strumming on Drowned from Quadrophenia, the B-side
Naked
Eye and a Who's Next reject, Relay.

In fact, the band performed most of its classic Who's Next -- with
incendiary
versions of Won't Get Fooled Again, Getting in Tune and Baba O'Riley.
Daltrey
and Entwistle's dual harmony singing on My Wife was perfection. And Bargain
came
with quite a bargain -- a nice intro by Townshend about how the song,
originally
written with most of the Who's Next material as a sci-fi opera, warned about
the
limits of technology and the importance of human connection.

Throughout the thundering evening, Townshend worked hard to make those human
connections. Before playing 5:15 (which featured a mind-bending bass solo by
Entwistle), Townshend said the song reminded him of a young friend who
recently
"messed up his mind" with too much drugs. And on the coda of The Kids Are
Alright, Townshend seemed to acknowledge his and the band's long journey
through
excesses to enlightenment when he sang new lyrics:

"Most of us got here. . . . Now we got kids. What can ever be wrong with
kids?"

It was Townshend's ability to blend the wisdom of age with the passion of
youth
that made it a night to remember. Even with some tickets topping off at
$140, I
call that a bargain -- one of the best I've ever had.
By Larry Aydlette, Palm Beach Post Arts Writer

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