WHO KNEW?: Roger Daltrey leads The Who in concert at Molson Amphitheatre last night, with Pete Townsend on guitar at right.

The Who a manifestation of nostalgia at its worst

By Ira Band

Special to The Star

"Who wants to see the boring old Who, anyway?"

The speaker here was Roger Daltrey, responding petulantly to a reporter's question as to why The Who, the once venerable British rock group, was breaking up. Daltrey asked this rhetorical question on arriving at Pearson International Airport in December 1982, for what turned out to be the first of many "farewell" tours for The Who.

In 1997, the answer to Daltrey's question may well be, "Not as many people as you might have thought."

About 11,500 fans out of a possible 16,000 showed up to see the latest Who reunion last night at the Molson Amphitheatre. By contrast, during the band's previous "final" reunion, in the summer of '89, it drew a crowd of 80,000-plus over a two-night engagement at the CNE Stadium.

Perhaps yesterday's lacklustre attendance was one way for a large and devoted, albeit disillusioned fan base, to respond in its own manner to the famous Who song from 1971, "Won't Get Fooled Again."

Or maybe, there was a sense that last night's show would be a manifestation of nostalgia at its worst. Like cotton candy, it tastes good going down, but you feel nauseous afterward. In any case, the band has now been re-uniting for almost as long as they were initially together (1964-1982).

Unlike the group's '89 tour, which was billed as a 25th anniversary event (even though the three surviving members remained divorced from each during the period of December '82 through the spring of '89), the rationale for the latest journey through the past was to showcase the band's second, post-Tommy rock opera,

Quadrophenia.

Now, the Quadrophenia album was released in October 1973, but the band never got around to actually playing it live in the mid-70s, except for a few select dates.

So, was the 24-year wait worth it? That, of course, depends on how far you were prepared to check your cynicism at the door. Even the faithful minions seemed curiously reserved last night during the first half of the two-hour plus concert, which featured all 17 songs from Quadrophenia, together with encore deliveries of a few favorites from the '60s and '70s.

Understandably so. With 12 other musicians and singers crammed on to the stage, including Pete Townshend's brother Simon and Ringo Starr's son Zak on drums, Messrs. Daltrey, Townshend and John Entwhistle seemed lost amid the assembled multitudes.

Even worse, the first several songs of Quadrophenia — the "rock opera" was Townshend's sentimental look at the loneliness of life for a disaffected teen in 1964 Britain — were clumsily rendered. Bassist Entwhistle remained invisible for the first half-hour, singer Daltrey dropped his twirling microphone on the second song, "The Real Me," and balding, puffy-faced guitarist Townshend looked more like a crazed headmaster at an English boarding school than a former rock icon, on the song "Cut My Hair."

It wasn't until the final eight songs of Quadrophenia that things clicked. When that happened, there were brief moments of magic, notably on the songs "5:15," "Drowned" and "Love, Reign O'er Me."

Just the same, one can't help but hope this is the final go round for The Who.