THE WHO, in concert at Vancouver's B.C. Place Stadium, Friday and Saturday.

By Glen Miller

(Herald writer)

VANCOUVER — There was an equation to be solved at B.C. Place Stadium Saturday night by some 45,000 people.

The question was if British rock legend The Who could equal all the expectations from the vast spread of ages attending the second of the band’s two Vancouver shows on its 25th anniversary tour.

Not too many fans were questioning the motives for the tour, why Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle would bother hitting the road in their mid-40s with only old hits and no new album material. With each of the three principals earning an estimated $20 million US and the band still notching record attendance marks, the motives were understandable.

A sampling of Calgarians attending the concert gave it a thumbs up . . . with a few reservations.

"It was mostly good, I really enjoyed it," said 26-year-old Mike Panes.

"They were tight, they played really nice. I thought they could have done more with the stage show, you know, be more electrifying, have more stage presence. One nice thing was it wasn’t so loud that you couldn’t understand what they were singing."

The power the three surviving members of the original foursome can still command over several generations in an audience was obvious.

A multitude of teenagers hearing the Angry Youth sentiment expressed on My Generation first-hand were obviously impressed by the song’s anti-establishment message, while many who are older than The Who themselves were enthralled all over again by singing the lyrics to Won’t Get Fooled Again like it came out yesterday.

"Overall they were really good," said Ky Sankeralli, 26, of Calgary. "I thought they could have done a bit more with the stage show, but more bands should be doing three-hour shows like this.

"I also thought their lighting show could have been better, add some lasers, but it was well worth coming out here for."

There were only a couple of glaring mistakes, such as the absence of Daltrey’s vocals on most of the first verse to Who Are You.

And, no, on this night anyway, there was no windmilling or leg splits from Townshend. Those "gotta see manoeuvres" were performed at the first show Friday with his right hand in a bandage because of a stage accident last Wednesday, but they didn’t appear Saturday.

There’s no question that The Who is visually a totally different band to watch now than it was in 1964, when the renowned Keith Moon was doing the drum bashing. Simon Phillips did an admirable job on this tour of capturing some of the drum-denting Moon was famous for.

The crackerjack band of 12 extra musicians lent a noticeable punch to what was sparser instrumentation when most of the classic Who songs came out. There were the new horn fills added on Pinball Wizard and Can’t Explain and far more percussion was added on raunchier numbers like Acid Queen, Substitute, I Can See For Miles.

After adding up the scorecards, those who had traveled hundreds of miles to see the show had their "I hope they play this song" scorecards fulfilled.

Canadian Press

THE SHOW GOES ON: Pete Townshend performed Vancouver concerts with bandaged hand