The WHO: The Song is Over.
by chris cunningham
Well that was it. The final time to see The WHO. The setlist was nothing surprising but it was chock full of hits. Let’s get the complaints out of the way, Daltrey just doesn’t have the chops anymore. He’s all over the place. Some songs he changes the melody so much it becomes a weird version of the song. There’s no fire. I Can’t Explain was lethargic at best. Terrible song to open with and they’ve been doing that for years. Pete’s windmills are actually slow. lol “Let me swing my arm around so the crowd goes wild” No fire on stage. That said, even if they’re going through the motions it’s still cool to see Pete and Roger performing. Love Reign o’er Me is still legendary. Won’t Get Fooled, Baba, fantastic. The WHO were my go to band in High School. That’s the time I really dug deep in their catalog and discovered all the gems of demos and lost recordings that Pete had laid down in his home studio. While I was working in London I could look out the window across Wardour St, and see the old Marquee nightclub. I’d think, wow it’s just right there before my eyes where The WHO got their real start. 90 Wardour St, Tuesday nights. Then I read Pete Townshend’s autobiography and learned so much about his life in Soho. He had an apartment on the top floor of 87 Wardour st. and kitted it out with a studio. I remember walking out the door and standing there looking up at the windows where Townshend had written and demoed songs in the late sixties and probably got started on Tommy. So cool.
My first time seeing The WHO was at The Forum in L.A. in the summer of 1980. It was the much delayed Who Are You tour and amazingly was less than two years after Keith Moon had died. This 1980 show was also just 6 months after 11 people died in the Cincinnati stampede. General Admission seating was banned for years after that. I’m surprised my parents even let me go.
I was only 14 at the time when my family friend John drove us up to L.A.. He was only 17 and had just gotten his driver’s licence. I can still picture the view from our seats. Way up in the banners of the Lakers players. I’d never been to L.A. like this on my own really and it was amazing. Pulling into the parking lot at “The Fabulous Forum” was incredible. Look at that place, it’s like a palace. We were living in our own road trip movie and the final scene was us seeing The WHO. The band The Only Ones opened and I didn’t like them. Lousy punk, and I’ve checked them out recently and still don’t like them. Ha. Then when The WHO came on it was the loudest thing I’ve ever heard. The beginning of my hearing loss journey. I’ve been able to see The WHO five times now and one missed time when my mom refused to let me go to the L.A. Coliseum show. That was in 82′ when The Clash opened and I even had paid for my own ticket. It still pisses me off because I never got another chance to see The Clash. 1982 Clash would have been epic.
Another funny thing was not long after The 1980 show a friend and I were skateboarding down one of our local streets and he had his guitar slung around him and I was sporting my WHO concert T-shirt. A woman in a dark green VW Bug sped by and pulled over and then starting taking photos of us. We were coming down the sidewalk and I was thinking, well this is weird. The next week we were in the newspaper and I was happy to have my WHO shirt in the photo. There’s a small gallery below to get the post show vibes.
So that’s just a little portion of my WHO life. There are many other stories like when I met Daltrey at a weird ABC concert show at The Palace and got his autograph. You, dear reader, wouldn’t read that far down so that’s that. Get some sleep, my ears are ringing, and for The WHO the Song is Over. What an Amazing Journey.
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