The Who performed at the Super Bowl this year. I didn't watch it. I'm not all that much of a football fan. But, I like The Who...so I was interested in how they did. When I was Skyping my Dad shortly after halftime, he mentioned that they did a horrible job. I decided to see if I could find the performance on You-tube (I love technology!). Sure enough...someone posted it. So, I watched it. Yikes!I saw The Who in 1989 on the "Kids Are Alright" reunion tour. I thought they did a fine job. I enjoyed the emphasis on songs from Tommy. Three of the original members performed (Roger, Pete, and John) along with a bunch of other musicians. They sounded good. They hit the notes. They had a decent amount of energy for being older men. The only clue to their age was Pete Townshend's arm brace that he wore due to too many windmill moves playing his guitar.
Now flash-forward 21 years to the 2010 Super Bowl. There were only two original members left after the death of John Entwistle in 2002. Roger looked the same as he did when I saw him in 1989. He's aging much better than...say...Keith Richards. He looked to be in decent shape. Pete, however, looked older. He wore a hat and sun glasses to hide something (balding, gray hair, wrinkles?). Pete is now 64 years old and Roger is 65. They are no spring chickens. Musically, they sounded pretty good. Pete still has chops on the guitar. However, Roger and Pete both sounded horrible when they sang. When Pete switched to harmony he was off key and out of time with Roger's lead vocals. In addition, poor Roger can't hit those high notes anymore. They both sounded pretty gritty vocally. My dad summed it up well when he said that they sounded like they both had a nasty smokers cough.
The medley that they performed consisted of a slew of their hit songs like "Won't get fooled again", "Who are you?", and "Pinball Wizard." I am more a fan of their more obscure songs like "Happy Jack", "Boris the Spider", and "I can't explain." I would have loved to see a medley of those songs. But, oh well! All in all, while I love The Who...I was less than impressed with their performance. I might be time to retire. Roger and Pete are at that age. It's time to let the royalty checks roll in and just enjoy the rest of their life getting a tan in Tahiti.
2 comments:
I will agree with you that they didn't hit the high notes very well but I think that all in all it was pretty good. I love The Who and maybe it was because I was talking to friends during the performance and wasn't analyzing it that I thought it was pretty good. I enjoyed it. I sqay rock on guys, don't retire.
I enjoyed the light show, but I agree that Pete should stop singing harmony. YIKES! What most disturbed me was that I was in Hawaii sitting in a 14 floor room with a beautiful view of Diamond Head and overlooking Waikiki Beach, but instead of enjoying it my husband had to see the stupid football game. We could have stayed home to watch that.
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