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First night 
 
The Who rediscover their old edgy spirit 
 
BY RICHARD MORRISON 
 
BACK for one last hurrah, The Who are the band that
simply wont lie down and die. 
Naturally it helps to have a good excuse to come out
of retirement  again  and this weeks series of
fundraising shows at the Albert Hall, organised by the
singer Roger Daltrey and the promoter Harvey Goldsmith
on behalf of the Teenage Cancer Trust, was better than
most. The key to the groups on/off rejuvenation,
however, has been a gradual softening in the attitude
of the guitarist Pete Townshend, who has always been
the member of the band with the least enthusiasm for
staging these reunion shows. 

But boy, was Townshend in a strange zone on Thursday
night. When not performing his windmill-action guitar
parts with real physical venom during numbers such as
Amazing Journey and Pinball Wizard, he played the role
of the bolshie old rocker to the hilt, cheerfully
insulting members of the audience, and complaining
about his flimsy American guitar as he bashed it
sharply against his hip. 

At one point someone yelled a warning to the bass
player, Jon Entwistle, that his amp was on fire (it
was that sort of gig). Who gives a f? Townshend
growled acidly. We used to set the things on fire
ourselves once upon a time. The craggy, grey-haired
Entwistle, looking more than ever like a character
from Mervyn Peakes Gormenghast, stood by impassively
while the situation was investigated. 

The perennial problem with rock reunion shows, and
especially charity rock reunion shows, is that the
original edgy spirit and adrenaline-fuelled aggression
of a band such as The Who tends to get buried in an
all-pervading aura of nice. But that wasnt the case
here. 

True, there was a hint of a touchy-feely moment
towards the end when Townshend broke cover and started
gabbling on about how truly grateful he was to be
alive at his advanced age, despite all his best
efforts in the past to make sure that he would not be.
But by then we had already seen Daltrey and Entwistle
have a little spat during an unbelievably ropy version
of My Wife and, more to the point, we had heard the
band wallop through a sequence of favourites  I Can't
Explain, Substitute and Anyway Anyhow Anywhere  with
such genuinely pugnacious glee that it was difficult
not to believe that this time they really did mean
business. 

It was as if they had finally got past the idea of
being embarrassed or apologetic about playing these
anthems of youthful protest now that they are all 
with the exception of the drummer Zak Starkey  in
their late fifties, and have reached a point where
they once again feel comfortable inhabiting them
instead. And while it was too nostalgic, and
occasionally too scrappy, to rank as a great
performance, it was certainly something special. My
Generation, indeed. 

Docked a star, even so, for Entwistles terrible
vocals in My Wife, and for the excruciating bass solo
in 5.15.


=====
-Brian in Atlanta
The Who This Month!
http://www.thewhothismonth.com
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