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Three Days and Two Nights



A few thoughts after seeing the Hollywood Bowl and Irvine shows. . .

Perhaps what I am going to write is influenced by the weight of my years, my
current state of depression, exhaustion, or a general sense of boredom with
things.

Because I was on vacation in Montana and Alberta for most of July, I did not
find out about the Hollywood Bowl show until a week or so after the tickets
went on sale.  (I will say that the Gorge concert was pretty heavily
promoted, and it sounded like, from listening to the radio, that the people
in Montana, who really don't get very many big name concerts, were really
excited about driving the 5 or more hours to the Gorge.)  As I had already
spent what I thought was a considerable sum of money for what, according to
my reading of the seating chart to be better than average, seats for Irvine
that I got from Ticketmaster.com the morning they went on sale, and being
rather broke after my vacation, I decided to economize and buy some less
expensive seats at the Hollywood Bowl.

MY MISTAKE!  Although I have lived in the LA area on and off for 20 years, I
had only been to the Bowl one other time, for a show called Bugs Bunny on
Broadway (they showed Bugs Bunny cartoons while a live orchestra played the
soundtrack).  I did not remember how utterly massive this place is.  If I
was in the same area code as The Who, it was only because they haven't added
yet another one in LA to accommodate all of the cell phones.  I think I was
closer to President Bill at the Staples Center.

The performance itself, quite frankly was a disappointment.  It has to rank
with my seeing Elvis in 1976 when it was evident that he was in extremely
ill health, as being one of the most troubling and sloppy performances by
musicians of any repute I have ever seen.  Perhaps as they made it to
Carnegie Hall they felt that they no longer needed to practice, practice,
practice!

As I saw similar reviews of the Chicago show, one might suggest to anyone
who had tickets to the West Palm Beach show, to sell them.  Except for those
of you without any visible means of support and those of you who have
dot.com stock portfolios to live on, who follow the band around, like a
bunch of camp followers.  You just keep on with your delusional "enabling"
(in the words of The Sage of Eel Pie) ways.

Not improving my already foul mood was the fact that I had to trudge the
next morning to Downtown Los Angeles for a meeting, which required me to
have to fight my way through a bunch of the disaffected and disassociated
protesting:

The fact that some ex-Black Panther cop killer, who in twenty years has
never publicly stated he is innocent, is going to be executed in
Pennsylvania (a state with a Republican Governor);

The LAPD is a bunch of fascists (No Merde!);

The so-called "party of the people" is as much a bunch of sell outs to
corporate America as the so-called "party of big business" (Gee . . . wasn't
the words, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss" written . . . oh . . .
TWENTY NINE YEARS AGO!!);

The Rage Against The Machine concert was canceled;

LAKERS!!!!  WE'RE #1!!!!

On top of which was the anarchists who decided to take over the Metro Red
Line and throw a Molotov Cocktail for the hell of it.  (A bit of news that,
as far as I know, none of the hundreds of news outlets in Los Angeles
bothered to report.  But Gore slipping Tipper the tongue, or Loretta Sanchez
having a party at the Playboy Mansion--you can't get enough of that.)  Oh
yea . . . lets potentially kill a bunch of innocent people because of the
WTO.  Like Greenspan is going to be taking the Metro.

It makes me glad that Bradley lost and I didn't end up being a delegate to
that French Farce.

On Wednesday, I made it down to the Irvine Spectrum just as many of you were
leaving for your VIP party.  After enjoying a few well earned beers at the
newly relocated (and somewhat improved) Crazy Horse, and thinking that it
would have been nice to have tickets upclose to the band like the seats at
the Crazy Horse are to the stage (at it's old location, it was generally
considered to be the best C&W venue in the world), I shoved off for the 1
mile (and 35 minute) trip across the I405 to Irvine Meadows or Verizon
Wireless/GTE/On Strike Amphitheater.  While I was stuck in traffic I saw a
helicopter landing at the venue, and knowing that the evening's
entertainment has arrived.  (If I could afford it, I would too take a
helicopter down the I405 if I had to go down it during rush hour.)

I then took the Battan Death March from the parking lot to my seats.  I
think it would have been less effort and time just to walk from the Irvine
Spectrum to the show.  Oh well . . . live and learn.

I get to the seats during the middle of the Unamerican set, and pull out my
ticket to figure out where I am sitting.  Orchestra, Row P 2, Seat 21.  OK.
I walk up to the first usher.  "In the right area?"  The usher down these
stairs.  I go down to row P.  There is a second usher.  I hand over my
ticket.  He tells me, go down the stairs some more.  So I go down the
stairs.  But I see no other letter P.  I get to the bottom of the stairs,
perhaps some 20 feet from the stage.  At this point, there is a rather beefy
bouncer type.  I pull out the ticket and told him that the previous two
ushers sent me in this direction.    He looks at the ticket and says to
follow him.  And he starts to take me even closer to the stage.

Then it struck me.  "HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!!!!   THAT WASN'T ROW P ON THE
TICKET.  THE P STANDS FOR PIT!!!!!  HOLY CRAP!!!  DREAMS DO COME TRUE!!!"

And it was.  A seat in the second bloody row!  I was completely stunned and
dumbstruck.  I sit down for the last four or five songs in the Unamerican
set, and if I stroked out at that moment, I would have died an extremely
pleased person.  (Being happy is against my religion--Latter Day Druid.)

After Unamerican finished their set, I get up as I needed to stretch my
legs, and walk up to the stage.  There is a bunch of people who are starting
to gather around the stage, as the crew was setting up.  An interesting
thing that I saw, that I am surprised that no one else either noticed or
have commented on, is that the lyrics of Let's See Action were taped at
stage center.  Once again, practice, practice, practice can be your friend.

I was milling about, figuring out (if possible) where I should position
myself.  After a couple of aborted attempts (including once when I ended up
standing next to a foul smelling pushy couple with overprocessed perms) For
those of you who make a habit of going to every possible show and pushing
you way to the front as if was a matter of birthright (as was the case with
the two individuals I just mentioned), please recall that there are other
people who would kill for the chance to experience the same thing.  Give
them some consideration.

I saw some of the people that had left the Crazy Horse two and a half hours
earlier to go to "VIP Party."  They were getting situated in their "VIP"
seats which were a half dozen rows behind the pit seats!  Now I had heard
stories that the so-called "VIP" seats were not exactly the prime seats that
their premium implied.  Well, unfortunately those stories were, at least at
Irvine, all too true.

As I said earlier, I bought my seat from Ticketmaster.com the morning the
tickets first went on sale.  I don't know anyone with the promoter.  I'm not
some big Hollywood star.  I didn't visit my friendly neighborhood ticket
broker and spent the mortgage money for a ticket.  (I did that earlier this
year to get a ticket for the opening of Pac Bell Park.  If I did that again,
I would  be the one, and not Roger, singing the duet on My Wife!)  I am just
Joe Lunchbucket who got very, very lucky.  If those poor people got "VIP"
tickets (which should be called "VIS"--"Most Valuable Sucker") what did I
have??  MVP tickets??

Then the band comes on and I am positioned between Roger and Pete.  What a
treat it was to have, at least from my prospective, the equivalent of seeing
the greatest live rock band ever in a small club.  The 18,000 or so people
behind me was just background noise.

The problem, unfortunately, after sober analysis, was that it was like going
to Old Timers Day.  For those of you who do not know the term, baseball has
a tradition where every year, a group of players who retired years ago get
back together and play a couple of innings to give the fans who remember
them in their heyday a treat, and those who were too young a chance to see
the heroes of their parents youth.  I remember going to Old Timers game
perhaps 15 years ago, when Ernie Banks, the Chicago Cubs slugger of the
1950's hit a Home Run into the left field stands at Anaheim Stadium.  But
for every Ernie Banks Home Run, there are twenty examples of former athletes
who had broken training a decade or more ago playing a game that resembled
more a Church League Softball game than professional baseball.  And that was
the feeling I was left with after last week's concerts.

It is not that I expect absolute perfection, or The Who as they were in 1966
or 1976.  I know that can't happen.  People change, they get older, they are
not capable of doing with ease the things they could do years ago.   While
the passion and fire of a generation ago may be gone, I do not believe that
it is unreasonable to expect when people paid a good deal of money to see
someone perform, that performer should endeavor to put on the best show they
are capable of.  To contrast what I saw last week, in May, I saw Bruce
Springsteen and The E Street Band, a group which I think is generally agreed
to being one of the few live acts in Rock history that could hold their own
on stage with The Who. While I thought that they were not as great live as
they were when I first saw them in 1978, Springsteen/E Street at least
showed a level of professionalism and commitment to entertain that I thought
was lacking in The Who.

I bring this again back to seeing Elvis in 1976.  The thing that struck me
about seeing that concert was that while it was apparent that Elvis was in
very ill health, the majority of the audience, who had been fans of his
since 1950's were acting as if he had just stepped off the stage of the Ed
Sullivan Show.  They were believing with their hearts instead of their
heads.

I had that same feeling seeing The Who--only this time, I was one of the
ones who was suspending belief.  I was one of the ones who would not accept
that Roger no longer had washboard abs, that Pete no longer had a full head
of hair, that Zac was not the bastard son of Keith Moon, that John . . . OK
. . . perhaps somethings don't change.  But there they were.  And there I
and many of you were.  Acting like it was 1976 again. But it isn't.  It
can't.  How can it if one can carry a normal conversation over, of all
bands, The Who, the band once known as the loudest band in rock?  (This was
relayed to me by some friends of mine were sitting on the lawn in Irvine and
did just that.)

Perhaps it would have helped if they changed the arrangements of more songs.
Why wouldn't something along the lines of the version of Who Are You that is
on the new Lifehouse recordings work (perhaps without the rap)?  Do we
really need to hear the same backing tapes on Won't Get Fooled Again?  Why
not something along the lines of the Pearl Jam cover of that song?

If it sounds like cynicism toward The Who and those of you who feel
obligated, required as a matter of fidelity to follow them around from town
to town for week after week, who feel like after every song to hold up your
little signs or autographed license plates with "The Who" on it, as if the
rest of us thought that we were watching Ricky Martin, perhaps it is.  But
if I am cynical, what would you call someone who, throughout the entire
concert, as they were about to perform his trademark windmill move, as his
arm was at full extension, would salute the audience with a raised middle
finger?  "I am the #1 guitar player in the world!"?  "I had an embarrassing
accident."?  (Judging from his guitar playing that was not the case.)  (This
can be seen, although not very clearly, at
http://www.petetownshend.co.uk/movies/tour6.ram at c. 3:07.)

I finish this up with a quote from the ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER'S review from
the Irvine show.  I think it sums up what, in a 100 words or less, my
feelings boil down to:

"The bottom line, though, is that these guys have talent left to burn - so
why waste energy on a revue? Why not join those rarefied ranks of classic
rockers who have made the transition to elder statesmen. Beat the Stones at
it, why don't you? Write some new material that speaks to who you are now,
not who we'd like you to be."

BW Radley
bw@bwradley.org