The Who’s Return to Greensboro

By Floyd Jones

After a four-year absence, the Who returned to the Greensboro Coliseum Sunday and from all outward appearances things have not changed much in those four years. But belying those staged appearances, things have changed dramatically during that time.

Gone is the master of mayhem, Keith Moon, who died September 1978. Replacing him is Kenny Jones, formerly of Small Faces. Jones isn’t the only personnel change in the Who. The addition of John “Rabbit” Bundrick on organ and piano has given the group a more homogeneous sound.

But the changes the band has undergone are more than superficial. Their music has always courted chaos. Adolescent aggression is the foundation of the Who’s music and when eleven people died in a festival seating rush in Cincinnati many were sorrowful but none were surprised. But their sorrow was not as great as their dismay that the Who would not continue the tour.

But the show did go on in Greensboro Sunday night. Opening the set with “Substitute” and following with “I Can’t Explain,” they quickly established that the more things change the more they stay the same.

“I Can’t Explain” was the first song the Who recorded and they never fail to include it. After establishing their roots, they moved on to their most commercially successful songs, “Baba O’Reilly,” “My Wife” and “Behind Blue Eyes.”

After these songs the emphasis of the concert shifted as Pete Townshend introduced “The Music Must Change” from their latest album. The middle portion of the concert was devoted to the Who’s most recent music.

The new Who album concerns Townshend’s dilemma in recognizing the Who as a musical force in the 1980s. Certainly, Townshend must feel the hot breath of the Clash and the Sex Pistols (now defunct and resurfaced in John Lyndon’s Public Image Ltd.) down his neck.

Songs such as “Who Are You” (dedicated to the Sex Pistols), “Sister Disco” and “Music Must Change” focus on the Who’s role in the 80’s.

The Who are now an enormous business, solidifying their supergroup status with the success of “Tommy” and “Quadrophenia” and subsequent film versions. The days are gone when Townshend can write songs with the naivete that made “Pictures Of Lilly” an adolescent anthem. Townshend is not a teenager and neither is the audience that grew up with the Who. Now he vents his aging frustrations with more clarity but with less conviction.

The newer songs proved to be the stronger in concert although they did not spark the immediate response that the older tunes did. Coming as they did in the middle of the concert, the new songs allowed the Who to say to the audience, “We’ve changed, and so have you.”

The latter part of the concert was devoted again to familiar territory. With their feet on solid ground, the Who once again proved that they are a great rock and roll band as they blasted their way through “My Generation,” “I Can See For Miles” and “Pinball Wizard.” Roger Daltrey’s finest moment in his mostly aerobic performance came during the “Tommy” overture when he sang “See me, feel me.” He seemed sincere in trying to get the audience to think of the Who not as mystics, but instead as just another band that also had its problems ahead of it.

After a rousing encore of “Relay” the Who left the stage. The audience had listened to 2½ hours of great rock but I left the concert unsatisfied. The Who, as a touring band, is still as strong as any. But by pandering to an audience that was entrenched in the Who’s past, could the band continue to progress? Townshend, as the guiding spirit of the Who, holds the answers to this and other questions in his heart, and therein lies the future of the Who.