Peter Townshend Leads The Who

A Review—

Who’s Rush Stayed, Pleasing Rock Fans

By Walter Dawson

It started last night with the explosion and flash that you knew it would.

Peter Townshend stuck a savage blow on his guitar and leaped high into the air, joined there by Roger Daltrey. John Entwistle calmly hit a few bass notes, and Keith Moon attacked his drum set with a basic but powerful drive. Lights flashed, crowd of 11,800 screamed and The Who concert at the Mid-South Coliseum was on.

It started with that kind of a rush and rarely let up.

The Who are an old group by rock standards, having begun their career in the early ’60s, but the years certainly haven’t mellowed them.

The area above the stage was hung with lights like a Christmas tree, and they were used to their fullest. The group also was equipped with about $36,000 worth of laser equipment, first time that much laser stuff had been used in a rock show, according to The Who’s light man.

The only bad part of the show was the volume. It was extremely loud as is fitting for The Who’s intensity, but at times, as when Townshend took a guitar solo, it was bearable only to those whose eardrums have been bored out by many rock shows.

Before the show, there seemed to be quite a bit of interest around town in the concert’s opening act, Toots and the Maytals. The group’s leader, Toots Hibbert, is one of the founders of Jamacia’s reggae music, a form that has influenced several rock stars in recent years, and many people obviously were looking forward to hearing it in its pure form.