Who at Brighton Centre - Sunday 18th June

[Martin Bailey]

The Brighton Centre is next door to The Grand Hotel (remember the Gaff, with the doors we smashed?).  I was there last night.  I'd dragged along a mate, who is not necessarily a big Who fan, but he does appreciate good music.

(This is the same friend that I took to see Pete do Lifehouse at Sadler's Wells.  This is the guy who, during the interval, went up to the rapper Tricky and asked if he was Goldie.)


The highlights of the show, in rough order:

Who Are You - started with this.  Great Start. Blew away most of the audience.  I shouted to my mate: "See, I told you they were the best rock group in the world!"  He couldn't disagree,

RD mucked up the vocals - singing "sewerhose" chorus again, just as everyone else was finishing off the song.  Roger blamed it on the heat in Leeds the night before.  O-kay.


The Seeker: 2nd song.  Great. Good rarities at a Who show!  At last!


There wasn't much stage banter.  But around this point Roger explained they were late after being caught in traffic jam.  (Today was the day of the annual "London to Brighton" cycle ride.  So the traffic in/out of Brighton had been abysmal all day.  We knew this, and had allowed an extra half hour on our journey to compensate - even though the journey only normally takes 30 minutes.)

"F***ing cyclists" exclaimed Roger, to much cheer.

Then Pete butted in.  "Hands up anyone here who is a cyclist?".  A few people raised their hands, and got booed.


Relay.  Nice guitar riffs.  My friend recognised it from "The Limey".


Wire and Glass.  Pete "We hope you like it."  DO NOT FEAR.  THE WHO HAVE DONE IT.  Within two seconds of playing, I thought - "wow, this Rocks!".  It's really heavy in places.  Classic Who.  Great Anthems.  We're all gong to be singing "We have a Hit!" this summer.  6 songs, ending in Mirror Door.

But inevitably, playing new stuff is always going to get a muted reaction from an unforgiving crowd.  I felt like I was the only person cheering at the end of it.

Straight into Baba.  Which got the crowd back on their side.

At the end of Baba, I shouted out "FAN-TAS-TIC" so loud that people turned round to stare at me.  Incidentally, my throat hurts today, and I can't talk very loudly.


Cry if You Want: OK, playing rarities is great.  But please, not this one.  I've barely ever paid any attention to this song before.


For Pete's acoustic bit, he played Drowned "As we're in Brighton".  But this was sadly the only Quad song of the night. (Before the show, I was talking to someone who saw them at Leeds the night before - and apparently there was NO Quad songs at all that night.)


Sparks: really good. I went wild.  Pete knew it sounded good, too.  When the song should have finished, and he should have played the gentle guitar song to wind it down - but instead he started up again, going back into the main Sparks riff again.  So the band joined in, and they played most of it over again.  But this became a bit of a shame, as it started to drag a bit.


Another new song.  "Mike Post" (?).  Dedicated to the American guy who writes a lot of TV themes.  Weird subject matter.  May be on the new album in September.  Pete said he also liked the "Big Brother" theme tune.   Song seemed to be about the difficulty in trying to condense complex emotions into a 30-secound piece of music. Nice enough, but didn't blow anyone away.


Encore:

Kids Are Alright.  Pete and Rog completely failed to sing the starting "I Don't Mind..." at the same time.  No "kids rap".  Which made the song snappier than in recent years.

Then Substitute and WGFA.

No My Generation, which was a shock.


So: The Who have still got it.  The new stuff is going to please a lot of people.  Perhaps I was a little disappointed that so much of the song list still matched the last time I saw them (Dec 2000).  But at least they're making an effort now with a few rarities and seven new songs.


Also good to see Casbah Club.  Some of the songs were very good.  Good to see Bruce Foxton, for the first time, as I've been a Jam fan for many years.  The new single, which samples "Start!"  (Foxton's Taxman-like bass riff) was gods. 

-MB

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