Re: Ibash '99 (Pixelon @Las Vegas) = LAL 2 (The Wrath of Pete)

[p47paul@impop.bellatlantic.net]

No one saw Zak mess up Baba O'Reily.  At the end when the band stopped Zak
kept doing the roll on the snare.  I thought Daltrey was going to punch him
by the way he looked at him for messing up.

Phil McRevis wrote:

> I was at the Vegas show with my friend Fred, as well as listers Wes
> Biggs and Kent Kimes who gobbled up my two extra tickets.  If you were
> at the concert, you may have spotted someone walking around in a green
> jacket plastered with Who buttons and that was me.
>
> I concur with the other comments: this show was loud and they just
> SLAYED the audience.
>
> Noone has yet mentioned how the announcer guy was being booed MASSIVELY
> by the crowd as he tried to hype the ibash internet pixelon hooha.
> (They went so far as to claim an audience of "1 billion".  Yeah,
> right!  I have yet to see a web server that could handle a billion
> concurrent users!)  My favorite part was when half the stadium started
> chanting "FUCK YOU!" over and over as he tried to schmooze us with his
> corporate schpiel at 10:00 when the show was supposed to start.  (If
> they wanted to do that candyass corporate crap, they should have
> started it at 9:30, not at showtime.)
>
> After the corporate guy, David Spade came out with some chick with an
> after-market chest upgrade who was supposedly some eye candy used to
> lure in geeky web surfers to the pixelon web site.  (Speaking of which,
> their website crashes on my browser and I never get farther than the
> first page.  Another reason to cry out against the dancing baloney
> phenomenon.)  After attempting a little bit of banter with the crowd,
> David Spade was at least smart enough to realize (unlike the pixelon
> corporate mouthpiece) that this crowd didn't give a shit about his
> little antics or anyone else and only wanted one thing: THE WHO!  So
> after attempting a few little cut ups with no response, Spade just said
> "Ladies and gentlemen, The Who!" and promptly exited the stage dragging
> Ms. Jello Chest with him.
>
> The set was LOUD and rocked like I've never seen the Who perform
> before.  I just bought the Isle of Wight video the other day, and I
> think they performed better at Vegas than they did at that show!  No
> fuck ups on the lyrics or on the playing.  They were in tune, on time
> and in spirit!  Pete looked more energized than I'd seen him for
> decades (with the possible exception of the HOB concerts in LA).
> Johns fingers blurred on the My Generation and 5:15 solos and just
> left me dumbfounded with my mouth hanging open.
>
> Roger's singing was on the money, even with a few minor glitches in
> the sound.  The synth in Who Are You sounded slightly updated and
> tweaked to me, perhaps just because never heard it played live.  It
> never ceases to amaze me how they manage to twist and contort Magic
> Bus into new forms.  When Pete opened the song with some chords I was
> looking back at Kent and Wes wondering if they knew what song it was
> going to be.  I guessed "Magic Bus?" and a few seconds later it was
> confirmed!  That Bo Diddley beat must be Borg inspired, its so
> adaptive.
>
> Zack Starkey was amazing on the drums; on time, in step and bashing it
> out on the tom toms at the appropriate points.  I was a tad bit
> disappointed he didn't take the bows with the three amigos at the end
> of the show, he deserved just as much credit as the rest of them!
> Rabbit was there, but fortunately his droopy sloppy 60s cheesy organ
> sound didn't dominate any of the songs, he was just there for a little
> filler here and there.  (One review mentioned something about Rabbit
> playing the synth part in WGFA and Baba!  Ha!  We real fans know those
> are tape loops and not played by the jackrabbit, fortunately.)  I
> prefer Tim Gorman's synth sound over Rabbit anyday.  I never really
> thought he had the right 'sound' to compliment the Who's playing.
>
> I had a bunch of "play" $20 bills that I was handing out to anyone who
> had a decent Who shirt or other attire "in appreciation of their
> attire" I would say.  Most people looked at me like I was trying to
> pull a scam on them!  People in Vegas are used to seeing it all and
> have heard all the angles before.
>
> The chick factor was incredibly high for a Who concert.  MSG in '96
> was wall-to-wall testicles by comparison.  And these chicks weren't
> just arm trophies they were singing along!
>
> Dumped a good amount of change at the merchandise booth: they had nice
> black cloth jackets with leather sleeves that had the words "The Who
> Live at Vegas" embroidered in red on the front of the jacket in the
> same graphic style as "The Who Live at Leeds" from the LAL album.
> Awesome!  Bought one right away upon entering.  They also had some
> stylish blue and green T-shirts with the band's arrow style logo on
> them (lame ascii graphic, I know):
>
>       ^
>       |
>     The
>       ^
>       |
>     Who
>
> These were rather smart looking and I picked up one of each color.
> They also had a typical black concert T-shirt with the picture from
> the "30 Years of Maximum R&B" box set (Pete and Roger) on the front.
> I picked up one of those and a nice white T-shirt with the circular
> target, the arrow style The Who logo and the phrase "The Kids Are
> Alright" on the outer blue circle of the target.  I was shopping for
> myself and two friends back east who I know would love something from
> the show if they couldn't be there in person.
>
> They also had a shirt with a circular style logo of the band, which
> looks to me to be identical to a logo used for some promo material for
> the band around '69 or '70, Tommy time frame.  Unfortunately the Who
> logo was on the back and the front was splattered with this big
> pixelon ibash logo, which was too ugly for me to want to buy that
> shirt.  They also had "Who By Numbers" shirts, in that off-white
> yellowish tone with the album's front cover art in a nice big size on
> the shirt.  There was also a tan shirt with "The Who Live at Leeds" in
> the style of the album art with the text placed where the breast shirt
> pocket would be and about the same size.
>
> There weren't any posters, programs, stickers, etc.  Just the shirts
> and the jacket.  The jacket was the coolest thing, I think, even if it
> was a bit pricey ($260).  However, you *know* its a limited
> collector's item because they obviously made a small number of these
> jackets just for this show and they are unlikely to ever be made again.
> If you see someone walking down the street in one of these jackets,
> ask them about the show!  They are only a small handful and you never
> know, when you see one, it might be me. ;-)
> --
> <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/>    Legalize Adulthood!
>     ``Ain't it funny that they all fire the pistol,
>       at the wrong end of the race?''--PDBT
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