Review: Music

Townshend at the Tower: Powerful rock, weak drama

By Sam Wood

FOR THE INQUIRER

As musical theater, it was daft. As rock and roll, it was unnecessarily compromised.

Pete Townshend — who won a Tony Award last month for the Broadway adaptation of The Who's Tommy — unveiled his latest attempt to fuse rock with drama, PsychoDerelict, to a Philadelphia audience at the Tower Theater on Thursday night.

Conceived as a tale of spiritual redemption and an allegory about the misuse of power, the hourlong PsychoDerelict features some of Townshend's strongest music since The Who disbanded, particularly "English Boy," a scrappy, bouncing anthem, and "I Am Afraid," a beautifully tender raw nerve of a ballad.

But the project's contrived story line — which concerns a faded rock star, his sleazy manager, a scandal-mongering rock journalist and virtual reality — is muddled to the point of incomprehensibility.

On Thursday, Townshend and his stellar nine-piece band assumed the role of a Greek chorus, offering musical reflections between scraps of dialogue by PsychoDerelict's three ham-handed actors. Fortunately, he had the good sense to sandwich PsychoDerelict between two terrific sets that drew generously from both his solo career and his days as leader of The Who.

Townshend opened the first, shorter set with "Face the Face," throwing himself into the song's skittering shuffle, dancing across the stage with the athletic grace of Gene Kelly and mugging with the comedic charisma of Cab Calloway. A brisk reworking of "Eyesight to the Blind" (from Tommy) followed, trailed by a starkly hymnlake "Behind Blue Eyes" and the simmering groove of "Eminence Front."

Following PsychoDerelict, Townshend rewarded the capacity audience for its patience with another hour of music packed with punch, power and curious surprises. Explosive renditions of "You Better, You Bet" and "Won't Get Fooled Again" were more than enough evidence that Townshend and band — when not indulging dramatic conceits — can provide more visceral rock thrills than just about any other act on the face of the planet.