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Topic: Who are you? Return to archive
April 23rd, 2004 01:52 PM
MrPleasant http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/21/1082530222483.html

Who are you?

How many original members does it take to make a reunion tour? In the case of the Who, it's two. For Deep Purple, it's none. By Michael Dwyer.

'Who's touring?" a spate of street posters teased early this month, a few days before the official announcement that a vintage British rock'n'roll company would soon reopen for trading in Australia.

Who indeed? The verdict any court of law would uphold beyond reasonable doubt is the Who, that's who. Or at least authorised representatives of that partnership, formed nearly 40 years ago by four young Londoners who would comprise the third most influential rock band of the British Invasion.

Sadly, though, only half of that highly respected union finds itself above ground in 2004.

Keith Moon, one of rock's most distinctive and influential drummers and certainly its most celebrated eccentric, died after years of alcohol abuse in September 1978.

Even from an era of pioneers, bass player John Entwistle was similarly renowned as a unique and innovative musician. Human frailty caught up with "The Ox" in a final flurry of female companionship and cocaine in a Las Vegas hotel room two years ago.

What we have in their absence is a quandary. No fan would deny Pete Townshend's and Roger Daltrey's right to the Who trademark. But neither can we feel comfortable with their continued use of it for the purposes of mass entertainment, let alone the always suspect corollary of turning a few million quid.

The Who, you see, more than most rock bands of the 1960s, were strictly the sum of their parts. "We haven't got a normal line-up," Daltrey explained to me in 2001. "We've got a bass player who really is playing lead guitar, almost. And we've got a lead guitarist who is playing rhythm and occasional lead. So the drums become like the needles that knit these two things together."

Hence the surviving trio's hesitancy and turmoil in the wake of Moon's death. As a former student of Moon, Zak Starkey was finally deemed an acceptable replacement in the 1990s. The son of former Beatle Ringo Starr, his pedigree didn't hurt, either.To find one Pino Palladino suddenly seconded on lead bass guitar within days of Entwistle's death was less easy to assimilate for those of us who remembered the Who as something more than a good rockin' franchise. That day, the line between inimitable superhero trailblazers and crack stadium cover band was crossed.

Which doesn't preclude the possibility of a good time. The chances of Townshend, Daltrey, Starkey, Palladino, Townshend's brother Simon and longstanding keyboard sideman John "Rabbit" Bundrick simulating the sound, energy and greatest hits of the Who at Vodafone Arena on July 31 are high. These men are professionals. Technology is at hand. Sentimentality will be abundant.

But is there not something greater being squandered here? Perhaps a similar indefinable something to that which Mama Mia stole from ABBA, and that We Will Rock You ripped from the crippled remains of Queen?

At least as much as those acts, the Who was a rare instance of technical nuances and personal chemistry defining a unique voice in a medium awash with static.

From a band that enshrined the line "Hope I die before I get old", this crafty act of partial cloning crosses the boundary between disappointment and betrayal. It's not the first time Daltrey has attempted to drive this magic bus with parts of the engine missing.

In 1995 he announced an imminent Australian tour by a version of the Who that included Entwistle, but not Pete Townshend, the band's principal songwriter and visionary. "I started the band," Daltrey crowed at the time. "It was my band. It's still my band. This is the Who, it's just that Pete isn't in it at the moment. It didn't affect Pink Floyd, did it? Roger Waters was the same to Pink Floyd as Pete is to us."

The fans' verdict? No dice: no Pete, no Who. The tour was cancelled due to poor ticket sales.

Daltrey's Pink Floyd analogy trod thin ice. Unlike the Who, the diminished Floyd continued to write and record new material after the acrimonious departure of their conscience and chief writer in 1983, even if the brand name became a hollow vessel for stadium bombast. (Waters made a far more dignified and convincing fist of the band's back catalogue, updated with his own, when touring under his own name in 2002.)

It would be different, of course, if the Who stood for nothing but personal gain. You wouldn't catch Kiss writing a tune like Townshend's righteous Won't Get Fooled Again.

The New York grease monkeys are about to mount their third Australian tour with some other guys masquerading behind two original members' face paint, but they never claimed to represent anything other than crass capitalism anyway.
Deep Purple are in town with a grand total of zero original members, following the recent retirement of keyboard maestro Jon Lord. That's as it should be. Musical chairs have long played a central role in that band's 35-year evolution.

Fleetwood Mac's recent tour hinged on the surprise reunion of four-fifths of their '70s line-up.

Last year's visit from the Rolling Stones featured only three original members, but it's safe to believe that the absence of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards or Charlie Watts would see the tongue logo retired for good.

In comparison to any of these bands, the Who have always had a grandiose vision of rock's importance - witness the conceptual weight of Tommy and Quadrophenia, for starters. Like the works of Brahms and Mozart, they apparently believe that theirs should stand alone, in concert, in perpetuity, regardless of the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune. It's a brave gamble with a monumental legacy.

"I'm aware of my mortality," Daltrey said in 1995. "Someone else will eventually step in (for me), hopefully, though I haven't heard anyone yet who can sing quite the same as me."

One wonders if Keith Moon and John Entwistle felt as cocksure about their place in history.
April 23rd, 2004 02:16 PM
jb
April 23rd, 2004 02:30 PM
glencar They'll get some idiots to show up. Let's hope the T-shirts show the original line-up.
April 23rd, 2004 02:52 PM
Joey
Great article MrPleasant ...........................


Thanks !


BEST STONES YET !


BEST WHO YET !!!!


Blue ............................You Continue to make The Joey very sad .



Why ?!?!?!


WHY ?!?!?!?!

Jacky Cakes !

April 25th, 2004 08:59 AM
Jumping Jack Pete is still the best rock guitarist on the planet and well worth the cost of admission by himself.
April 25th, 2004 10:21 AM
J.J.Flash
quote:
MrPleasant wrote:

[...]

How many original members does it take to make a reunion tour? In the case of the Who, it's two. For Deep Purple, it's none. By Michael Dwyer.

[...]

Deep Purple are in town with a grand total of zero original members, following the recent retirement of keyboard maestro Jon Lord. That's as it should be. Musical chairs have long played a central role in that band's 35-year evolution.

[...]




Follow my idea: Deep Purple got recognition after the first line-up (read Jon Lord former Artwoods, Ritchie Blackmore, Nick Simper, Rod Evans and Ian Paice). The Deep Purple as the Rock'n'Roll addicted people know, the DP that got recognition is formed by Ian Gillan with his roars of a lion, Jon Lord, Ritchie Blackmore, Roger Glover and Ian Paice. With this line-up, they gave to the world perls such as "In Rock", "Fireball", "Machine Head", "Wo Do We Think We Are", "Perfect Strangers", etc. They were more than just a band, they were genius that were put together and mixed their IDEAS, put that together and created some of the greatest R'n'R titles of the history of mankind. If you doubt, check songs such as "Highway Star", "Bloodsucker", "Strange Kind Of Woman", "Fireball", "Lazy", "Smoke on the Water", "Woman From Tokyo", "Perfect Strangers", "Child In Time".......If you doubt, listen just to these songs and plus, check out "Made In Japan". You won't regret! I beg you, just listen to these songs and albums.

The time passed, they had "homeric" fights, they broke up. Ritchie Blackmore left the band for good, and now, even only with Gillan, Roger Glover and Ian Paice, they were still masters, Steve Morse is too much loved, and this Don Airey isn't so bad at all.

I love Deep Purple!
April 25th, 2004 02:15 PM
Taptrick

Historically - there have been bands that do even more insulting things. There were several groups in the mode of those groups with a line of men singing across the stage such as The O'Jays or The Spinners - and I really can't specifically remember the names of the groups involved, but they were those type...and there were several of them...where someone obtained the rights to the name and would have two or more lineups out performing at the same time, So I could be watching one group in San Diego while my best friend was watching them at the same time in another state. That's ultimately pushing this idea too far I think. And of course there are other more traditionalk rock acts in ehich the lineup is nowhere near the same - and you may choose to go or not go Some that come to mind are: BTO, John Kay and Steppenwolf, Guess Who, Robin Trower, Santana, etc.
[Edited by Taptrick]
April 26th, 2004 10:40 AM
Joey
quote:
Jumping Jack wrote:
Pete is still the best rock guitarist on the planet and well worth the cost of admission by himself.



Jumping Jack .......................................I would like to clutch you to my bosom and tickle you with me erect nipples .

You are a very smart individual .

H. R. Puffin Joe !