The Who

At Largo, they proved the accolades are deserved

By Rafael Alvarez

Sun Staff Correspondent

The 16-year-old boy had just woken up from a hard night’s sleep on the couch in the basement. He had on only his jockey shorts. It was 9:00 in the morning and he had a slight hangover.

There was only one way to start the day fresh.

Walking over to the stereo, he put on a party-weathered copy of “My Generation,” turned the volume knob to 8.5 and walked back to the couch to await the chaos.

“People try to put us d d d d … down—talkin’ ‘bout my generation.”

For more than three minutes, the boy was Peter Townshend, up in front of one hundred faces— all girls’. When the destructive part of the song came, the boy was jumping up and down on the couch, smashing his imaginary Gibson guitar against the wall, against the armrests of the couch, against imaginary amplifiers.

Bringing the guitar over his head for the final crushing blow, the boy caught a glimpse of a figure out of the corner of his eye. His hands froze above his head as he stood on the couch in his underwear.

Shaking his head in front of the boy was his father, roused from a mere three hours’ sleep after working the night shift.

“What are you, some kind of jerk?" asked the father.

How do you answer your father when you’re jumping wildly on his couch in your underwear smashing imaginary guitars against the wall?

“Yep. I’m a jerk."

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Largo—Right now, The Who is the hottest band in rock and roll.

Not that media exposure signifies importance, but if you pay any attention to publications at all this could be the 15th article about The Who you’ve read in the last two weeks. However trite those articles may have been, however many times they used words like “legendary,” “history” and “significance,” they were all true.

Thursday night at the Capital Centre, The Who happily performed more than two hours of music that qualifies as a large chunk of rock’s greatest hits, as well as The Who’s greatest hits. The first 10 minutes of seeing a legendary band with a history of significance in concert (long enough for The Who to bang out “Substitute” and “I Can’t Explain") are spent in wonder and amazement.

Though it’s impossible to settle down when listening to The Who, you do get used to the idea of being in the same arena with the band. And then you’re left with the music, which, like the musicians performing it, was forcefully madroned.

The Who took the stage at 8:45 p.m. Peter Townshend came on perfectly scroungy in an oversized yellow T-shirt (which he later shed in favor of an unbuttoned sports jacket), a blue handkerchief around his neck, and black-walled sneakers. Every time his skinny right arm swooshed down toward his guitar, one expected a reverberating crunch of metal. It didn’t always happen; sometimes he just wound up about six times without striking a chord.

At one point, he struck a chord of mere mortalness. Leaping during “Summertime Blues," he fell backward on his rear and into the drum platform.

Roger Daltrey, whose best moment in a shining performance came in the vocal solo that opened “Behind Blue Eyes,” was a man with ants in his pants. At times, the 5-foot-7-inch lead singer looked absolutely comical, bringing his right knee up to his chest with the beat about 30 times, like a biker trying to kick-start his motorcycle.

Never still for a minute, the former sheet metal worker ran in place, paced in circles and sang with the confidence of a man who’s been making a huge living off his voice for the last 15 years.

John Entwistle, one of the few bass players in rock who actually plays his instrument rather than plucking it, spent a lot of time watching Mr. Daltrey and Mr. Townshend in the center ring. Next to laying down the most intricate bass lines in rock, the classically trained Mr. Entwistle’s major contribution of the evening was "My Wife."

A comical story about a man who forgets to come home every now and then (“Gonna buy a tank and an airplane, when she catches up with me won’t be no time to explain”), this galloping tune is the most popular of the handful of songs “The Ox” has penned for The Who. It featured Mr. Townshend’s most extended lead guitar run of the evening.

A lot of people I talked with after the show who weren’t critics said they didn’t pay much attention to drummer Kenny Jones. This was a compliment in itself: Forever linked in rock history with the character he replaced, the late Keith Moon, there would have been a lot of attention paid to Mr. Jones if he had failed.

The man deserves all the credit in the world. Without his highly competent performance, the bottom would have fallen out of the concert. Diligent and dependable, he made it possible for Mr. Townshend and Mr. Daltrey to dance without worry.

After the 20 minute encore, Peter Townshend told the faithful that The Who would be returning tonight for a “special” concert. He may only have meant a previously unscheduled concert, but he may have been hinting at some surprises.

If the show follows the format of Thursday night’s, you can expect to hear the following in addition to the songs mentioned above: “Baba O’Reilly,” “The Punk Meets The Godfather,” “Goodbye Sister Disco” (splendid!), “My Generation” (weakest song of the night), “5:15,” “Drowned,” “The Real Me,” “Who Are You,” “The Music Must Change” (a study in composition), “Pinball Wizard,” “See Me/Feel Me,” “Sparks,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” “Long Live Rock” and “I Can See for Miles.”

(The Who photo caption) The Who: bassist John Entwistle, drummer Kenny Jones, singer Roger Daltrey and guitarist Pete Townshend.