The Who in concert

My second time seeing them at this show convinced me I did not imagine the majesty of the Woodstock performance I had witnessed the previous summer!?!?!

 

Have to say they peaked in 1971: fully engaged with all the material, Moonie in great shape and the ennui following relative failure of Quadrophenia in 1973 had not set in

 

1979 was my first Who show, MSG. I don't remember much about it though !

 

The Beatles are my favorite but these guys in the 70's are my 2nd favorite. What power!

 

^ Those Les Paul Deluxe guitars with two pickups were Townshends best live sound.

 

Neil Peart's first Who show. April 7, 1968 at CNE Stadium in Toronto, Canada.

 

Yes, I saw them March 11, 1976, Madison Square Garden. They were devastating. I've told this story here before, but here goes: They played for 2 hours and just killed. Said goodnight and went off. Nobody left. House lights go up, recorded music goes on, and no one moved. Finally, after 20 minutes the house lights go back down and the band comes back and the place goes berserk. PT says "We don't do f*$&@*ing encores!!!" Played another 40 minutes or so and Pete lays waste to a Les Paul. Maybe somehow we in NY knew we'd never see that band again. (I have a tape of the show so I know it really happened this way). John always said that '76 was their live peak. And yes, I've seen hundreds of shows since then, inc. The Who, but that was the best show I ever saw. By anyone.

 

December 1979, London. This was the last time that Mr Towneshend played Les Paul at the concert.

 

I can vouch for the power of The Who on the '76 By The Numbers tour having been among the fortunate fans at the Oklahoma City performance on March 15.

Here's the set lists from Wikipedia for the '76 tours:

The Who Tour 1976 - Wikipedia


Cat

 

That's what I'm taking about!

 

Also saw The Who in 1979 in Buffalo the night after the Cincy tragedy. Talk about an intense evening. Even though it was all reserved seating the show started an hour late to let everyone take their time getting in (was announced on the radio all day). The band looked fried when they walked out on stage. Daltry made some brief remarks and then the band played as if their life depended on it. It was if they felt they had to go all in or go home in light of what had just happened. A spectacular performance (and I remember being quite impressed with Kenny Jones). Also unbelievably loud. When the lights went up after the encore and everyone's ears were ringing off the hook, for some reason the soundman starting playing Hold The Line by Toto. There was a loud crescendo of boos...we just saw the best band in the world and you're torturing us with Toto???

 

Eight man band version 1.....

 

There's some great live Who on youtube. I wish more of these had official releases or even semiofficial like Jimi's Dagger Records.

 

Apart from the great music, I love watching/listening to Pete's laconic, humerous comments (usually with Keith chipping in).

 

I saw The Who twice, once in ’97 during the Quadrophenia tour and next in 2000 during their final tour with John Entwhistle. The show in 2000 was among my favorite shows ever. MusicMaker, which was an early online music label with a download option packaged Jimmy Page & The Black Crowes with The Who and sent them across the country to play on alternating nights. They came to Boston over the 4th of July weekend. First night was Jimmy and The Crowes, second night was The Who.

I feel that tour was very underrated. It was just Pete, Roger, John and Zack Starkey with Rabbit on keys. Pete was back to playing electric for the entire show (he had deferred to mostly acoustic for all of the ‘90s shows) and the whole band were clearly enjoying themselves. I’m surprised to not see this tour mentioned as one of their best.

 

For the most part, the 2000 tour has been highly regarded by Who fans. I don't think it rivals anything from the 1967-1981 period, but the band was playing with fire and commitment in 2000 (although Roger's vocals were pretty rough).

 

Pete's acoustic work on the '89 tour gave him the confidence to enable the '96 / '97 tours. This new dexterity enabled him to then experiment on electric during the 2000 tours which were fabulous. West Palm Beach and Jones Beach were great. I saw ALL UK shows and Manchester and Sheffield were simply stunning.

But they paled to insignificance compared to Portsmouth ans Watford 2002. The band was truly on the cusp of something amazing and God only knows what the studio material would have been like........ For me, I'm ranking:

JUL - DEC 1971
OCT - DEC 1969
JAN - FEB 2002
DEC 1973
OCT 1976
SEP - NOV 2000
JUL 1989

The Who WERE, simply, the greatest live act in history.

 

Here is Pete smashing a Strat at Jones Beach in 2000. I was at this show, Entwistle had his bass turned up loud enough to shake the arena. I also saw Pete smash an acoustic guitar at Jones Beach in 1993.

 

The March 11 show at Madison Square Garden was the only date of the first '76 North American tour to feature an encore:
"Road Runner" (Ellas McDaniel)
"Let's See Action"
"Naked Eye"
The MSG show was originally scheduled for March 10, but a rescheduling was announced, rumored to be due to Keith Moon's being too intoxicated to play. The show was produced on the following day.