Who's Hot in Dallas

Fort Worth Star-Telegram / SONNEL VELAZQUEZ

Who lead singer Roger Daltrey belts out a song before 35,000 people at the Cotton Bowl with bassist John Entwistle in the background

Road of hype for 'Biggest Party' ends at Cotton Bowl

BY JAY B. LEWIS

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

DALLAS — For the record, last night was the last — no jive, really — the last stage appearance of The Who. Probably, if nothing changes drastically.

How's that for hype?

The group's concert in the Cotton Bowl, which drew 35,000, counting fans and their children, was a white-hot echo from the Baby Boomers' apocalyptic past.

No arguments there.

But the native art form of the 20th century's favorite generation is not music but hype. And the buildup to the concert was a veritable Sistine Chapel of slick public relations.

Climaxing months of Randy Quaid radio and TV spots drumming up business for Miller Lite's "Biggest Party in History" to benefit the Texas Special Olympics, The Who — in Houston on Saturday and in Dallas last night — played the final dates of what they had widely advertised as their last tour.

Quaid's bash at six Texas locations over the weekend was billed as the Biggest Party in History — which, if true, puts it right up there with Queen Victoria's Jubilee and the coronation of Darius the Great. It had to be as much fun, anyway.

The Who opened with I Can't Explain to a howling crowd whose green Chemlites made the stands look like a scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Up front, lead singer Roger Daltrey, dressed in blue jeans and tank top, skipped across a stage bordered by huge tapestries of Union Jacks and

(More on PARTY on Page 7)