The Who @ MSG - Review by "Encore"

["O'Neal, Kevin W." <Kevin.ONeal@vtmednet.org>]

I just read a review of the MSG show.  You can find it on thewho.net.  Iv'e
copied it below, too.  The review is written for "Encore" by an obvious Who
fan, Bob Lefsetz, but it really, REALLY, captures what I think a
whoooooooooole bunch of people *Internationally* where feeling.  I
definately felt the emotion of the moment as described by Lefsetz.  
I was telling my wife last night (in anticipation of a copy being sent to me
that I can show her.........Thanks to Jeff's wife Melanie!!!) just about the
same stuff that Lefsetz has written about the show.  She looked at me like,
"oh man, he's really fired up and serious about this".  I was.  I still am.
Fellow Who friends....  While watching The Who's portion of the MSG show
live, I started yelling (all by myself at home) in a violent rage like "FUCK
YEAH!!!!"  I stood up to do this!  I looked around for something to throw!
My dogs ran upstairs to hide on their beds!  I felt anger.  Then, I
litterally felt chills.  *Never* felt chills like that.  Then, I cried.  I
even convulsed at one point because they extracted such deeeeep emotion at
the entire spectacle (still a bit wigged out about that).  It was *that*
fucking powerful.

What I keep coming back to is that this was all live, and infront of an
International audience.  HUGE!
Enjoy the read.

Stay in Tune,
Kevin in VT

Won't Get Fooled Again
- By Bob Lefsetz
"No one knows what it's like
To feel these feelings
Like I do"
I thought rock was dead.
I saw a face-lifted David Bowie more worried about his image than playing
transcendent music. 
I saw Jon Bon Jovi smile and mug like rock is a party.
I saw Paul McCartney treat rock with no respect. Just a laughing fool
trotting out his dancehall tunes.
I take my rock DEADLY seriously. For it's the only thing that gets me
through. The only thing that understands me.
My whole life I've felt like a party of one. The only time I felt
solidarity, felt connected, was lying on my floor listening to my stereo,
sitting in a darkened theatre, feeling the music pulsing through my body.
All the trappings still exist. But in name only.
Music is big business today.
But it's not the same. That renegade experience. That feeling that the
artists were speaking to you from their guts, that they had to get their
message across, that's evaporated. All the soul... It's history. What we've
got now, is entertainment.
But last night, on the Madison Square Garden stage, rock reared its ugly
head once again. And it brought tears to my eyes. Literally.
Hometowner Billy Joel was the peak. He's already written the tribute song,
"New York State Of Mind". Melissa Etheridge reached me. But really,
everybody was just performing.
Then, the Who hit the stage.
I learned to love the Who in the Bromley base lodge. "I Can See For Miles"
was on the jukebox. It was never a big hit on the chart, but I had to buy
the single.
They don't make records like "Pinball Wizard" anymore. Literally. There was
this acoustic guitar in one ear. And then, all of a sudden, twenty five
seconds into it, an electric BLARED into the other. Today they mix for the
center. No special effects. Nothing to make a programmer pass. But in the
sixties, we were all on this ADVENTURE! And our stereos were part of it.
"Tommy" was not hokey. Not overhyped and overmarketed. It was a
BREAKTHROUGH!
And having played this breakthrough double album until the grooves turned
gray, I went to see the band perform the rock opera at the Fillmore East.
The only drummer who has ever rivaled Keith Moon in power was John Bonham.
You watched Keith, and you SWORE he had four arms. He was flailing, hitting,
punching. It was an AVALANCHE of percussion. And the bass player, John
Entwistle. He was as still as Moon was active. The lead guitarist, Pete
Townshend. He coaxed this power out of his instrument. There were only three
players, but it sounded like a freight train. And on top of it all, was
Roger Daltrey's rich voice. It was mesmerizing, it was mind-blowing. I've
never seen a better concert.
I saw the Who again. But they lost it. As all bands who hit high peaks do.
They put out what many consider to be the best rock album EVER, "Who's
Next", and then they didn't know what to do. Made a few more records, broke
up, got back together, broke up again, got back together again...ad
infinitum. I wouldn't go see them. It was creepy. There was no new material.
So I thought last night it would be quaint. It wouldn't deliver.
They started with "Who Are You". Not one of their best. But they were
wringing all this energy out of it. Everybody in the audience stopped
talking, stopped looking around, they were focused on the STAGE! They were
WITNESSING something. The power of rock and roll.
Pete Townshend cut off all his hair. He looks like your eccentric uncle.
John Entwistle looks like an older version of himself, and that's creepy
enough. Daltrey...he's no longer the golden-haired wonder boy, but he could
still sing.
And there's the British flag on the screen behind them. And then, at the end
of the song, it goes to the American flag. The crowd ERUPTED!
It was no longer a VH1 tribute show. It was no longer "Behind The Music".
One forgot about the lame SNL skits, the bogus actors barely able to read
the TelePrompter. It was like Jesus had suddenly come down from heaven. The
applause was one of happiness and release! We were finally being DELIVERED!
And the message? The religion was valid. We still had to fight the Romans,
but god, we were gonna win!
Like some tent revival, the whole audience was mentally locked in during
"Baba O'Riley".
The music didn't sound dated. One hoped teenagers were tuned in to witness.
To see and hear what had once been. To be touched by the pure unadulterated
religion. And the oldsters. It was like their whole lives had been
validated. They'd drifted. Gained weight, had children, gotten divorced,
hadn't achieved all their dreams...but they still possessed their
IDENTITIES!
THEN, unlike those losers on the September 21st show, unlike Paul McCartney,
this band from England gave the audience just what they were looking for,
"Behind Blue Eyes".
Rock used to be able to be sensitive and angry, all in the same song.
There's mellifluous singing. Sending your mind on an hejira. Then the
acoustic guitar is replaced by a rocking electric. As if you finally reached
the top of the hill on the roller coaster and were set loose.
And then, having delivered the missionary position everybody was waiting
for, the band delivered head. They played "Won't Get Fooled Again".
And the five thousand fire and policemen on the floor. And the rich people
in the loge. And millions of Americans at home watching on TV. They all
stood at attention, worshiping the music.
The music that filled that barnyard of an arena. Squeezed absolutely
everything else out. All stimuli but itself. Pete throwing off those licks
you listened to in high school, college. Got stoned to. Drove to. Felt
happy, and angry to.
It wasn't offensive. Not to anybody. Nobody hated it, like heavy metal or
hip-hop. It wasn't easy listening, but...it was classical in its own sense.
My whole life made sense. This whole show made sense.
We're a country of mediocrity, getting by. But we rise to the occasion. When
it counts, we deliver. And we separate the wheat from the chaff.
Ever since Kurt Cobain died, all we've been getting is chaff. To the point
where everybody thought nobody was interested in religion anymore. They
thought there were no true believers left.
Oh, how wrong they were.
All it took was three fiftysomething musicians and two support players to
show us in twenty minutes what it was all about. To give us a correction
factor. As the big screen showed the Twin Towers and the Statue of Liberty,
we totally UNDERSTOOD! Our anger, our grief, our resolve. We'd taken a hit,
suffered a loss, but we had an inner power, we could make it through. If
human beings could conceive of and play this wonderful noise, ANYTHING was
possible. Money could be raised, mountains could be moved, enemies could be
defeated.