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Another London Arena review from The Independent



Thanks much to Shanon Dell for pointing this out to me.

Available on line at:
http://www.independent.co.uk/enjoyment/Music/live_reviews/2000-11/barber191100.s
html

After 36 years, don't ask who these guys are
The Who | London Arena
By Nicholas Barber
19 November 2000

Who is Pete Townshend? For 20-odd years, he's been an author, a poetry editor, a
solo artist, a composer of musicals and a multi-media pioneer. In short, he's
been anything he possibly could be, just as long as it wasn't the guitarist and
songwriter of the Who.

That's what happens after you've tasted pop superstardom at an early age. You
refuse to talk about your youthful success and insist that everyone concentrates
instead on the drum'n'bass opera and accompanying sculpture exhibition that
you've just finished. But then, a couple of decades down the line, you start to
mellow. You take paternal pride in the records made by your teenage self and you
decide you should remind people of how bloody good those records are. You don't
look back in anger any more. And so it was that, this year, the Beatles
collaborated on an autobiography and David Bowie stole the show at Glastonbury
by playing the hits he's ignored for so long. And so it was, too, that the Who
got back together.

This may seem to be nothing new. Townshend, Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle
have never been far from each other's company since they split up, officially,
in 1983, and Townshend is continually dusting off such old Who projects as Tommy
and Lifehouse. But he always maintained that he had risen above the band. On a
reunion tour in 1989, he merely strummed an acoustic guitar, leaving the loud
stuff to someone else, and Daltrey admitted that with all the extra musicians on
stage they were committing fraud by trading under the Who's name.

But on their latest tour, the surviving trio is augmented by just two extra
musicians. One is John "Rabbit" Bundrick, a fabulous keyboard player who first
played with the band since in 1970s. The other is Zak Starkey (the son of Ringo
Starr, he nonetheless learnt his drumming technique not from his dad, but from
Keith Moon, which is possibly for the best). Otherwise, every note is played by
the old firm: a short-haired clean-shaven Townshend, barking "F--k off" at
hecklers and windmilling his right arm the way no one else can; Daltrey,
bellowing the lyrics and doing lasso tricks with his microphone lead; and John
Entwistle, a venerable cockatoo who stands like a statue.

They made a sharp, punchy, punky racket: the explosive openings of "Who Are You"
and "Won't Get Fooled Again" literally rocked the audience back on its heels.
When Townshend fluffed the riff on "Pinball Wizard" and when the group slipped
out of time on "You Better You Bet", it only reinforced the notion that we
weren't watching a smoothly efficient touring cabaret, but a rock'n'roll band
flying by the seat of their pants - and grinning at the thrill of it.

For the audience, this thrill waned when the band drifted into long instrumental
jams, although even these had their highlights: Entwistle's bass solo was so
fast that you could barely make out the individual notes, but his fingerwork
looked phenomenal on the video screens. There were also some songs which should
have been omitted. Instead of concentrating on the promised greatest hits, the
Who dragged out the two-hour show with obscure tracks that Townshend himself saw
as "out-takes".

But in the context, even this self-indulgence is forgivable, because it
indicates that Townshend isn't here just for old times' sake; he believes in his
songs. Whether adding lines about his troubled past to "The Kids Are Alright" or
making sarcastic comments on recent reviews, he is out to prove that his band
are still contenders. At the end of the main set he introduces them in
tear-jerking fashion: "That's John Entwistle, this is Roger Daltrey, I'm Pete
Townshend. We call ourselves the Who." For one of the first times since Keith
Moon's death, it's a name they can use with some justification.
© 2000 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd.

        -Brian in Atlanta
         The Who This Month!
        http://members.home.net/cadyb/who.htm