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| Ten Thousand Motels |
Why the Who?
sundayherald
June 2 2006
People tried to put them down. But The Who – or at least half of them – still get around. Next Sunday, they’ll headline T in the Park, with a new album to follow. But are Roger and Pete really a vital force in rock today?
By Leon McDermott
Of all the shaggy-haired teenagers enamoured by American bluesmen who crawled forth from London’s pub circuit in the mid-1960s, The Who risk the most by refusing to give up.
The Rolling Stones long ago descended into self-parody, and knowingly too, becoming the kind of band who swapped excess for equity, happy to charge fans inordinate sums for stadium seats. Clapton, in his various incarnations, rolls on and on, the occasional Cream reunion in the rarefied confines of the Albert Hall allowing entry only to the faithful, middle-aged and wealthy, who can afford the tickets. He gets in there, plays a couple of nights, has the DVD out in time for Christmas, and sees no need to engage with either non-believers or the sweaty mass of a real rock crowd. Neither the Stones, nor Cream, however, wrote a song which contains the line “hope I die before I get old”.
And there – in seven words penned over 40 years ago – lies the crux of The Who’s problem.
Rock’n’roll is a young thing’s game, particularly for the generation who came of age in the 1960s . To still be slogging it out at 60-plus looks like a sham, or an embarrassment: like watching your dad attempt to dance to Kylie at a wedding, still convinced he’s with it.
And for a band with as fearsome a live reputation as The Who – Live At Leeds (of which more later) is still roundly considered the best live rock album of all time – the danger increases. When your strutting youth, all priapic swagger and thunderous windmilling chords, is preserved forever in well-worn vinyl grooves, it’s doubly difficult to deny that you’re no longer the band you once were.
When half of your number are dead, it becomes harder still.
Drummer Keith Moon, always as self-destructive off-stage as he was explosive on it, died after a party at Paul McCartney’s house in 1978. More recently, bassist John Entwistle, in a pathetic caricature of rock’n’roll’s sad excess, was found dead in a Vegas hotel room after a cocaine-fuelled night with local prostitutes. Now down to singer Roger Daltrey and visionary guitarist Pete Townshend, are The Who even The Who anymore? Daltrey and Townshend would assert they are.
Since their appearance at Live8 in London last summer (which was overshadowed by the reformation of Pink Floyd), The Who have been busy. There have been gigs, a current tour, which will take in T in the Park next Sunday, a new single called Wire & Glass (in typical Who style, it’s a mini-opera in six parts), and an album coming this autumn.
They also returned to Leeds University’s student hall after 36 years to commemorate the taping of Live At Leeds. The original gig was an intimate affair for a band who, by 1970, were one of the world’s biggest. Recorded in front of 2000 students and fans, the resulting album remains an aural snapshot of a group brutally in control of their songs, and the blistering power of rock itself.
Almost four decades older, if not necessarily wiser, The Who rattled through their set with all the buzzing, incendiary abandon still apparent when you listen to that original recording. Like the adult-children of Dennis Potter’s Blue Remembered Hills, they were both young and old at the same time, electricity coursing through their veins.
Couple this with the quasi- egalitarian idea of touring festivals, rather than barracking themselves into arenas stuffed full of people their own age, and you have a band who are clearly unafraid to face “now” head-on, and don’t bristle at the idea of having to prove themselves to audiences composed of people young enough to be their grandchildren.
It’s for these reasons that – though they risk more – The Who are still both relevant and fascinating, in a way that their contemporaries ceased to be decades ago. They were always a rougher, dirtier band than their superstar peers, their edge of sonic violence rarely tempered. Their evisceration of blues rock laid the template for Led Zeppelin (who were given their name, depending on whom you believe, by either Keith Moon or John Entwistle) and much of what followed throughout the 1970s, not least punk.
It’s no coincidence that of all the so-called dinosaurs punk’s gob-in-the-face, year-zero approach attempted to kill off, only The Who were allowed leave to remain, and the film of Quadrophenia was a key part of the late 1970s mod revival. Despite being set 15 years previously, the violent fag-end of the 1970s seemed to be reflected in every mirror of Phil Daniels’s Lambretta.
And so it has been since: legions of punks, new-wavers, Britpop kids and retro rockers all owe them a debt. Maybe The Who have come back to show them exactly how it’s done.
‘They’re the best live band in the world’
David Bowie, who almost headlined T in the Park in 2004
“The Who’s work became a major template for so many of us. The considered and intelligent use of so-called ‘art-theory’, actively engaged with rock music, was merely one of Pete Townshend’s phenomenally important contributions to the new ‘language’ of rock.”
Dominik Diamond, who presents the Xfm Scotland breakfast show, Monday-Friday, 6am
“I love The Who because they’ve got every component of rock mythology – band members who fall out and/or die, guitarists who smash things up onstage, overblown musical self-indulgence (would you allow a band to record Tommy if they pitched it to you?) and wacky invention: they were the first band to use sequencing. I also love the idea that they got Marshall, the biggest amp makers in the world, to keep making bigger amps just so they could hear themselves over each other onstage. They were effectively the first band to ever play music too loudly for their own good. So why is a new Who album important? So it scares the Y-fronts off quiet, fey boys like Paulo Nutini and José Gonzalez.”
Andy Neill, co-author of Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere: The Complete Chronicle Of The Who 1964-1978
“When The Who first formed their classic line-up in 1964, most bands were schoolfriends and wore matching suits. But The Who made no bones about the fact that they were four individuals, who didn’t necessarily get on, and their music is where they played out all their aggression. They were a breath of fresh air, and incredible to watch. They may not have been technically brilliant like Eric Clapton or Ginger Rogers, but there was a power to them, a glorious din. I’ve heard some of the new single, and it reminded me of The Who of Quadrophenia. I’m curious about the album. Even though they’ve lost two key members, they’ve got every right to make another record. And as far as playing goes, they’re the best live band in the world, so I’d be surprised if anyone at T in the Park can touch them.”
Jamie Compton, Artist Relations for Fender Guitars
“Pete Townshend is 60 this year, and so is Fender, as it happens. He’s used a lot of different guitars over the years – Gibsons, Rickenbachers back in the 1960s – but in the last decade or so he’s become known for this one model Fender Strat [Townshend prefers a particular model of Stratocaster, with specifications originally made by Eric Clapton]. Obviously it makes us look fantastic, and he’s said very nice things about how cool he feels when he’s wearing our guitar. As an artist and a writer he’s always led his audience, challenged them, and even now he’s always looking for new meanings in life that come out in his lyrics. Pete’s changed God knows how many lives, and I think that kids respond to his energy and conviction just as much today as they ever did. We’re just so lucky that he’s still out there doing it.”
[Edited by Ten Thousand Motels] |
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| Jumping Jack |
Pretty much says it all, don't miss them! |
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| Shawn20 |
quote:
Jumping Jack wrote:
Pretty much says it all, don't miss them!
Hey JJ, Did you see the Who at the Omni in Atlanta in 1980? What a show! |
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| Jumping Jack |
I was living in Moraga, CA in 1980 and saw them at the Oakland Coliseum. Great show, but no Moon. :-( |
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| Joey |
2006 -- BEST WHO YET !!!!!
www.PeteTownshend.com
Kins . |
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| MRD8 |
I saw The Who in the Omni in '79...is that the show you are talking about? I don't think they played the States in '80... |
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| Joey |
quote:
MRD8 wrote:
I saw The Who in the Omni in '79...is that the show you are talking about? I don't think they played the States in '80...
Actually MRD8 , Pete & Company toured the states throughout the entire first half of 1980 . Word
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V
www.thewholive.de
" 09.07.1980: Atlanta, The Omni
Substitute, I Can't Explain, Baba O'Riley, My Wife, Sister Disco, Behind Blue Eyes, Music Must Change, Drowned, Who Are You, 5.15, Pinball Wizard, See Me Feel Me, Long Live Rock, My Generation, I Can See For Miles, Won't Get Fooled Again, Summertime Blues, Twist And Shout, The Real Me
Concert Details "
Kins .
[cc:ss]
[Edited by Joey] |
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| Zack |
"People tried to put them down."
Nice lead. |
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| Zambero |
Even with only two original members, I still consider them to be The Who. In The Who, the two original departing members were ushered out by the Grim Reaper, while they were still very much in the band. In The Stones, four members (including Stu) have left either voluntarily or involuntarily while still alive. So as far as the original lineup goes you can truly say that no one has ever gotten out of The Who alive. OK, there's Kenny Jones who happens to be a able drummer, but he was hired on as a mere replacement for Keith Moon, who was not really replaceable. That's a profound contrast with, say, Bill's "retirement". |
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| corgi37 |
Nice lead, sure. But what the fuck did the article actually have to say? |
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| Joey |
quote:
corgi37 wrote:
Nice lead, sure. But what the fuck did the article actually have to say?
Corgi is truly THE KING !!!!!!!! |
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| jb |
It put the Stones down...while the Who are my 2nd all time fav, they are not really a band.
[Edited by jb] |
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