1996-01-27-Lancaster_New_Era_1
There's a musing, what-if sound to his voice when John Entwistle said this week, "I often wonder what might have happened if I hadn't been with the Who."
Monday night at the Chameleon Club, this what-if will be taken out and given a whirl, as Entwistle, the Who's ahead-of-his-time bass player, brings his own band to Lancaster.
For Baby Boomers, this could be the most famous musical visitor in Lancaster since Bruce Springsteen's unannounced appearance at the Village a dozen years ago.
The solo venture is not an unexpected one for Entwistle, who even at the Who's tumultuous peak recorded solo albums and developed a niche writing songs filled with good-natured black humor.
For Monday night's 8 o'clock show at the Chameleon, Entwistle promises a varied show of his original songs, and will feature an obscure band recruited from his post-Who days.
"It will be an out-and-out rock n' roll show, uptempo 6 hopefully even a together show," chuckled the easygoing Entwistle, who patiently answers questions he's no doubt heard before.
"It's funny, a lot of our fans I've met don't really like the Who," he said. "The Who was never enough for me. I was involved in solo work for some time with the group, and I still have to work for a living."
Even though the Who made a lot of money, part of the reason he works for a living these days, Entwistle said, is that "we also had pretty substantial expenses," a seeming reference to the group's penchant for leaving trashed hotel rooms in its wake.
The Who was then, and this is now, Entwistle says.
He plans to play only two of its songs Monday 6 "The Real Me," from "Quadrophenia," and mid-1960s hit "I Can See For Miles."
He was the first member of the Who 6 whose well-known lineup featured Pete Townshend on guitar, Roger Daltrey singing and the late Keith Moon (later Kenney Jones) on drums 6 to make a solo record.
He made five in all, and is getting ready to release a compilation of hits from his solo efforts.
Monday at the Chameleon, Entwistle will have signed collector's albums on sale, and will go online backstage to "talk" to fans.
Along with his trademark bass, Entwistle plays piano, trumpet and the French horn, among other instruments.
For long-time Who fans, one Entwistle prediction for Monday's concert rings true: "Bring earplugs" advises the one-time member of a group whose concerts were once measured to be louder than standing under an airplane taking off.
Now in his 50s, Entwistle at the Who's peak brought a rapid-fire, thumping bass that influenced a generation of players of the four-stringed rhyt[m]
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