Another Payday & Low Bass

[Kenneth Hawkins <kenneth.hawkins@arch1.nara.gov>]

Hey Folks:  I'm new to the list but have been reading the archives
for awhile and have enjoyed the discussions.  The Who and
Townsend solo are in with my top favorite obsessions, muscial
and otherwise, since high school in the 70s.  Just wanted to
make a couple of remarks in response to a couple of recent
posts...
  I have a feeling that one of the boys' other favorite towns
besides NYC is my own hometown of Portland Oregon.  I saw
them there on March 24, 1976, playing at the Memorial Coliseum
(rumored at that time to be the smallest venue on that tour).....  
This was before the Pacific NW was "hip" and we had trouble
gettng big acts to perform there.  The Coliseum didn't hold more
than abut 9000.   Roger was having trouble with his voice and
after about an hour it just gave out.  With profuse apologies they
had to quit the show but promised to return on same tour.  And
they did! I caught the second show, Oct 13, 1976 with a number
of friends and it blew us away!  They played close to three hours
and, being as it WAS the seventies, I'm sorry to say that the
above is almost all I remember about it, 'cept that it was loud, it
rocked, the laser show was awesome (the same setup you see
in Kids, the Shepperton studio numbers), and it hooked me for
life.   All I listened to for months after  was Quad and WN.

They also made Portland a stop on the "farewell" tour of 1982
when they were playing really big venues.  That time, my date
and I adjourned after the show to Pdx's best hotel, the Benson,
and sure enough, the boys came into the lobby one by one, and
we there got to meet them, get autographs etc.   Now I'm on the
east coast, but I think Pdx was also the opening date of last
summer's tour, wasn't it??

Regarding the bass mix, we saw Quad at the US Air Arena in
Landover MD (outside DC) last Nov and the sound mix was just
great.  Nothing was missing, especially not the bass: it hit your
chest with a thud and went up from there.  I was especially
impressed because tht place is your typical basketball/hockey
palace from the 60s but the whole mix was clear as a bell. 
Maybe the quality of the mixes depends somewhat on how good
the house engineer is or the particular acoustics of the place......

I've got my tickets for the VA Beach show on Aug 9th and am still
waiting for the tickets to go on sale for the Nissan Pavilion, which
is near Manassas VA.  I agree with the person who said they
were just about ready to throw in the towel and go a scalping
office -- since customer service is the LAST thing on TktMaster's
agenda...