The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

[The Real Me <emerald.eyes@rcn.com>]

I recently got a bunch of stuff via Ebay, including a 1/83 issue of
"Creem" magazine featuring an interview with Roger, which was done
during the 1982 tour.

Here are the last few paragraphs:

<<To be perfectly fair, the band is including five new tunes from
"It's Hard" on this tour (gotta push the product, you know). Except
for those, however, this is the kind of show you could set your watch
by. "Substitute" and "I Can't Explain" for openers. The old standbys
from 'Quadrophenia' and 'Tommy' (after "See Me, Feel Me" has been
included in three films, at least as many albums, and who knows how
many live performances, even Daltrey must be sick of it). "Won't Get
Fooled Again" for a close. An extended "Magic Bus" as the encore.

Good tunes all (or at least most), but that's beside the point. There
was a time when the Who lived on risk. when the band pushed itself a
little harder, a little hotter, than it might have thought possible.
When smashing guitars quickly became routine, it was dropped --
audience expectations be damned. When 'Tommy' in its entirety had run
its course, the band moved onward and upward. Why, then, do the Who
now cling to a set where practically every highlight has been done to
death?

"What you tend to do on tours is do the best at what you know how to
do the easiest way you can," explained Daltrey. "There's so many other
pressures."

There was a time when the Who would have laughed at such play-it-safe
skittishness. That's the Who that I love the most. And deep down, I
suspect, that's the band the Who themselves love the most.>>

Leslie


--
"Every one of the innocents who died on Sept. 11 was the most important person on earth to somebody. 
Every death extinguished a world." -- President George W. Bush, 12/11/2001

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