Rock

The Who

By John Coldstream

Quaint as it was to see Peter Townshend bobbing and weaving in front of one tiny amplifier as he duetted with his saxophonist father Cliff (late of the Squadronnaires) on Mr Parkinson's weekend orgy, he is not yet ready to swell Harry Stoneham’s ranks on a permanent basis.

Despite reports of greater friction than ever among this indestructible band, and his Saturday night mutterings that he is “thinking about” calling a halt, there is life in the old warhorse yet.

After a shaky forty-five minutes or so on this, the first of their three sold-out reappearances at Wembley Arena, rock’s most enduring institution pulled out every trick in the book to make it one of the greatest performances of The Who’s 17-year career.

Ignoring all rallying efforts by Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle, the splendid Kenny Jones and the almost invisible keyboards man John Bundrick, Townshend had been playing in lacklustre fashion, foregoing his usual badinage with the hecklers and seeming to be anxious only to get home to the missus and the children. But with the ever sumptuous “Behind Blue Eyes” and the classic “Pinball Wizard,” the show took life.

“The Punk and the Godfather” found the five musicians together for the first time as one, then “Who Are You” saw that Merlin among lighting men, John Wolff, unveil his roaming, flickering beams of green laser amid the palls of smoke which swirled about the stage.

In all the years that The Who have been playing their two anthems “My Generation” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” they have rarely delivered either with more ferocious purpose: Entwistle's growling runs on the bass attracting roars of approval for the former, the blinding lights and re-enlisted lasers making the climax of the latter an overwhelming complement to the crushing sound.

Then, in an unexpected encore, Entwistle achieved the near impossible by singing “Twist and Shout” just as convincingly as Lennon ever did. And with a few mighty bars of “Can You See the Real Me” the eight thousand were sent home reaffirmed in their faith that the oldies are tough to beat.