The eternal Who plays to Oakland

by Larry Kelp

Tribune Music Critic

In its songs, the Who deals with only the most important issues, for the band's own career is life in microcosm.

The group's song lyrics tackle the individual's struggle to live when death is the inescapable end, to love when everything in life seems determined to destroy love.

In "Pure and Easy," Pete Townshend, the Who's guitarist and main songwriter, sums up everything great about the Who in five minutes of musical pain and ecstasy by saying that all meaning can be found in one simple note:

There once was a note, pure and easy Playing so free, like a breath rippling by.

From left, Peter Townshend, Roger Daltrey, Kenney Jones and John Entwistle.

The note is eternal, I hear it, it sees me, Forever we blend as forever we die. I listened and I heard music in a word, And words when