The Who cast their spell over 100,000 pop pilgrims

Wembley Stadium rocks to The Who. Pictures by ALAN DAVIDSON.

Wizards of Wembley

By John Blake

The Who shouldn't really have played Saturday's Wembley Stadium show.

They still haven't got over Keith Moon's death, Pete Townshend has been warned at every concert he gives he irritates his ever-worsening deafness, and Roger Daltrey is desperately busy making a film about John Wayne.

Yet they went against all the odds — as always — and played a concert anyway once again reaffirming their position as London's best-loved group.

Rockets

The Mods rubbed shoulders with new Mods and pilgrims from all over Europe as more than 100,000 people crammed into Wembley for Britain's pop gig of the year.

Tough tickets were an arduous A38 each. The band managed to sell every inch of turf with ease.

Before the band even set foot on stage, skyrockets and bombshells were blasted into the air, while one young fan was so overcome by the sense of occasion that she stripped naked and ran through the crowd.

And then The Who were there, Townshend was swung out the opening bars of Substitute and the vast crowd were on their feet dancing like dervishes, shaking their hair into their eyes and singing along so loudly that, at times, even Roger Daltrey's 10,000-watt PA was drowned.

The song was an appropriate choice for a show opener to the new Who's first major concert.

It captures the insecurities of today's teenagers perfectly, as it caught those of the kids for whom Townshend wrote it 13 years ago.

Honesty

And it is the essential honesty of both The Who's music and their lifestyle that has earned them a more devout following than any other band in the world.

But more than that, The Who are still a great band. As Townshend swung his right arm like a berserk food mixer, and Daltrey had to lasso him with the mike lead, they played on into Can't Explain a0with a huge roar from the crowd for a brief solo from Kenny Jones, Keith Moon's cautious-sounding replacement.

And then it was Baba O'Reilly, followed by a lull as the band built towards a climax with See Me, Feel Me. For this, they turned their lasers on the audience, slowly mowing us all down one by one.

Everything after that seemed an anti-climax a0even songs like My Generation and Who Are You?

But then they blasted fire-flashers from the gantries as they closed with Won't Get Fooled Again, encored with Summertime Blues and See The Real Me then left 100,000 people, dazed delirious and looking as though they had just been through some kind of shared mystical experience.

Pete Townshend (centre) with fans after the show.