Storm delays ASU concert 2 hours

Who electric despite blackout

By PAM PARRISH

The Arizona Daily Star

TEMPE — At this very minute, someone in a tiny, stuffy attic probably is silkscreening the T-shirts:

I Survived The Who Concert ASU Activity Center 6-30-80

He’d have a ready market: about 16,000 people who waited for two hours in steam-room conditions for The Who to resume its concert after storms knocked out power in the area Monday night.

But the utility company was kinder than Ma Nature: The power — the loss of which had knocked out everything but lights kept burning by emergency generators — came back on, and The Who returned to finish its sell-out show with songs that had been intended for encores.

It's a credit to Arizona State University’s security people that the crowd was finally informed of what had happened.

Who guitarist Pete Townshend, his right hand in a cast, had unsuccessfully tried to quiet the crowd, which cheered every time he moved. He finally shuffled off the stage, pushing a broom before him, shaking his head and grinning.

Then a burly, bearded man in a black T-shirt and jeans came out with a bullhorn. But the sound of 16,000 people whispering “Sh-h-h!” to their neighbors drowned him out.

Finally, security personnel went to each section of the UFO-shaped arena and shouted that the power was out all over Tempe; as soon as it was returned, the show would go on.

It's a credit to the crowd that people waited with relative patience, only occasionally breaking into owlish chants of “Who, Who!” or shouting in unison an unprintable word that usually refers to disgusted disbelief.

But most of all, it’s a credit to The Who that the members stayed until they could finish the show, that at least 90 percent of the audience stayed, too — and that when the British band hit the stage, it picked up the momentum as if the interval had been five minutes instead of 125.

That’s not so unusual when you consider that The Who did the same thing in much more serious circumstances after the death of its drummer, the wonderfully outrageous Keith Moon, two years ago.

Though many were betting the band would disintegrate or remain together only to record, The Who has returned with an even stronger following. A whole new generation stuttered along with Roger Daltrey when he sang the anthemic “My Generation” — just before the power went off.

The Who is still one of the most dynamic, talented, creative (remember creativity?) and

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The Who

effective rock bands in the world — arguably the very best, judging from its almost two hours of muscular, glorious music performed Monday night.

That music can fire your spirit just blasting from a car radio. In concert, with the visual excitement of lighting and the band’s performance, it was stunning.

The moves are familiar: Daltrey swinging his three-man horn section and keyboardist John Bundrick, who gave even more color and dimension to the sound.

The band members were always there mentally, not simply going through the motions while their minds were off in the stratosphere.

The crowd, of course, responded with equal intensity to everything, filling the arena with earsplitting cheers, shrieks and whistles — when the band opened its performance with “Substitute” and "Can’t Explain"; when Townshend played the jangling chords that signaled “Pinball Wizard"; when Entwistle stepped up to sing “My Wife'; when the band came crashing in to join Daltrey and Townshend in the midst of “Behind Blue Eyes"; at the distinctive synthesizer intro to “Baba O’Riley" — almost obliterated by problems with an amplifier.

The sound was the only blot on the performance, with occasional feedback that brought grimaces from the band members.

Looking back, it would’ve been nice to hear some new, unreleased material Monday night — to get a look at how The Who has evolved since Moon’s death. But I wouldn’t want to have missed even one of the songs they did perform.

Instead, I wish everyone who has ever attended a rock concert could have been there to see and hear what a real band is like for once in their lives.

As my aunt said in an amazed understatement when I played “Who’s Next” for her: “These guys really are musicians!”

Review

microphone in circles that mimicked those of Townshend’s arm; Townshend executing his swiveling, legs-tucked-under leaps; Daltrey jogging, marching, skipping, running in place as he belted out the words to “The Real Me," “Long Live Rock” or an awesome “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” emphasized by flashpot explosions whose smoke made it seem the band was performing inside a multi-colored cloud.

During the first set, Townshend climbed down from the stage and walked to a bearded man with a bandanna in the first row who’d been flinging the long, curled paper of his Chinese yo-yo toward the stage. Townshend took the yo-yo from the amazed man and playfully hit him over the head with it, then vaulted back onto the stage.

That was the last of the distracting yo-yo flinging.

Townshend, Daltrey, bassist John Entwistle and drummer Kenny Jones were joined by a