MSG review from The Village Voice

["Brian Cady" <cadyb@home.com>]

Thanks to Gern Blanston for pointing this one out.  This is one paper that really
surprised me with a positive Who review.
On line at:
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0041/sotc.shtml

The Sound of the City
Oracle and Roll

Hearing the b'gockingly reanimated Who ("Actually," Pete Townshend clarified, "we call
ourselves THE FUCKING 'OO!") shred Madison Square Garden last Wednesday was like
revisiting the Delphic oracle via Ray Harryhausen. The very fragility and low-tech nature
of middle-aged geezers rocking out-at a level of energy and invention only slightly below
Live at Leeds (true)-lent the human touch to 2.25 hours of maximum r&b that made openers
UnAmerican and the Wallflowers sound dated in comparison. Generations collided
nonetheless. Taking a VH-1 moment during this stripped-down hits-fest, cynical
sentimentalist Townshend introduced "Relayer" as part of the stillborn Lifehouse rock-op
he resuscitated earlier this year in England. He claims the song anticipated the Internet,
whose pornographic applications he decried, sneering, "I thought it was going to be
spiritual."

The Who, however, had your spiritual right here. Drummer Zak Starkey channeled Keith
Moon's energy and technique as Townshend and John Entwistle dissected "Anyway Anyhow
Anywhere" and "The Real Me." Where Townshend's classic style consists largely of taking a
blues lick and smearing it across several measures, he's added an entire Eddie Van's worth
of tricks to his toolbox, too, spewing megabytes of information in each machine-gun-like
solo while posing like the suavest mofo ever to grace the cover of Mojo. Roger Daltrey,
playing a Paul Newman-esque straight man to Townshend's mad scientist, looked great and
kept out of the way. With Townshend at a creative crossroads, the material problem was
solved by consulting the entrails of the old stuff with casually manic glee. As for the
newbies in the house: "In the words of Stephen Sondheim," quoth Pete, "I hope you see what
you expected to see." Does more count? -Richard Gehr
Tell us what you think. editor@villagevoice.com

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