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Re: The Who - Tweeter Center, Chicago - 8/24/02



> I was thinking about not writing this, but I thought "what the hell".
> I can bet I'll be the only person to write this, and will probably 
> get flamed for this, but...
> 
> I didn't really enjoy the show.

Don't feel bad about it.  There was one guy who didn't enjoy the
Detroit show, too.  ;)


> Yes, there were some moments here and there that stood out, but I 
> walked away from the show not feeling very "up" about it.
> 
> Call me jaded, but the setlist just didn't do much for me. I LOVE 
> songs like Baba, Behind Blue Eyes, Pinball Wizard, etc, but in a live
> setting like that, for me, they stop being great Who songs and turn 
> into "those songs on the radio everybody and their mother knows." 
> TEENAGE WASTELAND!!!!!

Right.  Apparently we're stuck with them.


> Now, I'm really curious to see what the CD release of this show 
> sounds like. The reason being the sound sucked last night. I don't 
> know if it was where we were sitting, or the mix in general or what, 
> but it wasn't good. My girlfriend and I couldn't make out half of 
> what was said between songs. The general sound mix seemed to be 
> drums, Pete's guitar, and Roger. That was about it most of the time. 
> There was a loud bass presence, but it wasn't melodic at all - more 
> of "thump thump thump" sound. I don't know if this was some strange 
> way of mixing Pino, or just Zak's bass drums mixed very loud, or the 
> sound of the venue itself, but whatever it was, it wasn't pleasant. 
> It just seemed to muddy things up without offering any sort of 
> melodic backbone. Pete did a lot of noodling (I won't get into my 
> thoughts about that just now), and most of the time there really 
> wasn't any melody (be it on the bass, Simon's guitar, or Rabbit's 
> keyboards) to hold it together.

It may have been the venue, but is almost sounds like a recurrence of
the problem I mentioned early on--that the elements aren't tied
together well.  This is something that Keith did for the band, and now
obviously something that John did, too.  Without John, the drums can
easily become too prominent--especially the bass drum, which is likely
the "thump, thump" that you heard.  When John was playing, you could
never tell quite what was bass and what was drums.  I didn't notice the
problem at MSG and thought they had it fixed, but that may have been
just were I was sitting that night.  

What do they need to fill in the space?  A second bass player?

Aside from that, the videos that Matt is putting up are interesting. 
One from MSG was recorded from Pino's side and gave us a great sample
of Pino's playing.  Now he's got the one up from Chicago of LROM, and
all I can hear is Pete.  Presumably Roger can hear the bass, as that's
where the melody is, but it's interesting to hear just the top end.


LB

=====
God bless the thunder.  Love to The Who.
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