Seeing The Who with Danny

| March 25, 2016 | 1 Comment

danny and me at the whoI went to the Who concert last night with my son, Danny.  It was his Christmas gift to me…in 2014. Unfortunately, lead singer Roger Daltrey took ill and they had to cancel the original performance. This was the make up.

The last time I saw The Who live was when I was in high school, around 1970. I remember the concert well because my “tricked out” VW beetle was stolen that night. It was found two weeks later totally stripped.

But this concert was a bit of a surreal experience. Honestly, the concert itself was little different from what I remember from 40 years ago, which, frankly, was mostly a good thing. My period of Who fandom was primarily confined to their “early, middle years.” The key albums were Tommy, Who’s Next and Live at Leeds. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to their pop era, in the early 60’s or  later to Quadrophenia and beyond.  We might also call that, the Keith Moon era, in honor of their legendary drummer.  I was big fan of Moon’s as noted in a blog post I wrote exactly five years ago today.  Also adding to the surreal nature of the evening is the fact that The Who’s current drummer is Ringo Starr’s son, Zak Starkey.  He was a worthy successor to both his father and Keith.

Back to the concert.  Happily, they played a sufficient number of my favorites, including a nice Tommy medley.  They also gave us Bargain and Behind Blue Eyes from Who’s Next. Unsurprisingly, they concluded with Won’t Get Fooled Again. After that emotional high point, Roger Daltrey introduced the band and they said “good night.” No encore. Which was fine, since I’m not sure that they would have played that would top WGFA.

Throughout the evening, I was constantly marveling at the passage of time. I noted in my Facebook post that my head would have exploded if the 20 year old me, going to The Who concert, would have been told that the 62 year old me would see them again 40 years later with my 26 year old son.

That was a joke. In reality, the 20 year old me would have been – or certainly should have been – absolutely thrilled to know I would have a son who would give me such a Christmas gift. In fact, at that stage of my life, I was pretty pessimistic about my future. I have called the years between age 20 and 30 my “lost decade” as I bumbled through eight years of undergraduate college. If I were given a peak at this evening at that stage of my life, I wouldn’t have believed it.  I wouldn’t have believed that my life would turn out so well.

The most ironic line of the night came in the song, “My Generation,” which says “Hope I die before I get old!” Fortunately, that didn’t come true for either Pete Townsend, Roger Daltrey…..or me.

Here’s a couple of clips from the concert:

 

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Category: Music

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  1. Ralph says:

    Excellent post!

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