Who stole my heart away — for a while

TOO long and far too loud. That’s what The Who were last night, when they played the opening gig at London’s new rock auditorium, Rainbow, in Finsbury Park.

Bygone generations will remember Rainbow as a cinema which went under the name of the Astoria, and which was renowned for its elaborate grotesqueries of thirties architectural style.

It was a picture palace of unsurpassed hideousness, and now, under a new management that same offending ornamentation has undergone some kind of strange metamorphosis and become the height of camp.

Well, that’s what’s supposed to have happened, but some people last night said they couldn’t really see signs of much metamorphosis, and that it still looked as distastefully garish as ever.

But never mind. For the moment rock and roll has found a home in London, and as Pete Townshend commented during the show “you’ve got to like it ‘cause there’s no other place left to play.”

Of all the groups who play regularly together the Who are undoubtedly the most accomplished, and the most entertaining, but last night they didn’t seem to know when to stop.

They opened their set in grand style. A group of six sequined and ostrich-feathered leggy birds did a high kicking routine, before dancing to the wings and returning with the four Who urchins tagged on to the line kicking along with them.

Great. In an age when rock has become so introverted that no one dare even smile for fear of being considered less than pretentious, The Who were

PETE TOWNSHEND

showing us that they enjoy a laugh, and that they were here to entertain. And to give us a show.

And at first what a show they gave us, launching straight into some of their early hits like Can’t Explain and Substitute, which is always a sign of a group that hasn’t got too big for itself, and which always wins the most popular acclaim from the audience in any concert I’ve ever been to.

Then, in between bouts of quite witty snippets of chatter from Keith Moon, they drove on down their album pile to find Eddie Cochran’s Summertime Blues, Barbara O’Reilly, from Who’s next album, in which they played against a pre-recorded warbling tape, a more gentle song Behind Blue Eyes, which was for me the high spot of the evening, and then Won’t Get Fooled Again.

So far they’d been loud, and funny, and outrageous, Moon belting away like a lunatic on drums, Entwhistle half in the

shadows, the silent mystery man, and Townshend, dancing and jumping and prancing like a gazelle on heat. But when they moved into excerpts from Tommy (“what, not again,” said Keith Moon, echoing, I’m sure, the thoughts of many of the audience) the night began to grow long and cold.

My Generation, almost brought the circulation back, and Pinball Wizard was as exciting as ever, but they’d lost the impetus of the first hour, when Magic Bus had been a great blinding Bo Diddley of a show stopper.

Against one of the best light shows I’ve ever seen, which was projected from behind the stage on to a huge screen, the Who gave all that was expected of them and more. Too much more.