If I were a 20-something who was seeing the Who for the first time, my main reaction would be “Their drummer is pretty good. The singers good for an old guy. I don’t get the guitar player, is he a singer also?”
They needed more practice. They needed it because of all the changes they made to their signature songs, amending them for time. Almost all of the transistions were shaky. These were the worst parts. Invariably, someone in the band was a little unsure if the switch was happening. Pete was often cutting out at these points. When he was playing it was not with his usual confidence.
Whenever they did happen to play 30 seconds or more of a song with no edits, it was great. They looked like a fantastic band. These are the parts I’m going to reply tonight before hitting delete. But just then a chorus would get skipped, Pete wasn’t sure if they were supposed to go to the break so he’d a big sustain note to cover it… sloppy work. And his voice was just horrible. What was going on there?
They did say afterwards that they couldn’t see anything, and it appeared they were having trouble hearing.
These days they say about themselves, “We’re not The Who. But we’re the best damn Who cover band in the world!” Unfortunately last night, they weren’t even that.
Update: Just listened to a second time. I upgrade it to a B-.
I thought that once the belly started showing, Pete was distracted by his wardrobe malfunction and had to contort himself a couple of times to keep it from hanging out.
Besides Prince, Springsteen last year was good too.
Totally agree that Prince has been the best of the post-Janet Jackson era. I guess that’s because he is only twenty years out of date instead forty.
Good point about the jacket. It also fell on the guitar strings a couple times, causing more troubles.
Will.I.Am: I thought it was terrible. Take away the cool visuals and it’s pure dreck.
Oh, any opinion on the Will.I.Am remix? “Hope I get old before I die?”
Nice wardrobe malfunction, Pete. I can see your belly.
Seriously, his jacket was getting in the way of his windmills. He didn’t test it out a couple of times before going on stage?
Jen’s prediction: Journey in 2011.
Here’s what I hate about these Super Bowl halftime shows–they force groups to do some damn remix of all of their stuff and cram it into 10 minutes. I would rather they just pick two songs–three max–and kick ass. I will say the one dude who really pulled it off well a few years ago was Prince. That was, by far, the best SB performance I can remember. Purple Rain in a storm = awesome.