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| From | "josh chasin" <jchasin@nyc.rr.com> |
| Subject | Another Who Review |
| Date | Fri, 28 May 2004 16:24:56 -0400 |
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May 24, 2004
ROCK REVIEW | THE WHO
Who Knew: Rolling Past Collective Memory
By BEN RATLIFF
One imagines the opus of the Who, represented in Pete Townshend's own ears,
as a sharp mosquito buzz: his evergreen anxieties, his sense of competition,
his drive to organize songs into concepts, his tinnitus. In the ears of
anyone who has encountered them after the 1970's, that same work is an
elephant stampede, broad-stroked and booming, the epitome of high-starch
classic rock.
Don't forget that the Who, in 1965, were a kind of art band. Mr. Townshend's
influences were amphetamines, anger, pop art and American R&B. He wasn't a
soloist and didn't want to be, so when pushed into the role of lead
guitarist, he resisted and negated. His high-concept lead style was all
about volume and violence, scraping strings with the edge of a pick,
thumping them with a fist, slashing them upward with a windmilling arm; the
amplifier became an instrument, too, reacting in distress. Jimi Hendrix
eventually scooped up his ideas, transforming Mr. Townshend's tantrums into
a giant act of love, and made them look amateurish, but Mr. Townshend was
then, and is still, good for a beautifully compressed antimelodic solo.
He did it a few times on Saturday at Madison Square Garden, where the Who
played on its current tour. (There is something to promote: a new greatest
hits album from Universal called "Then and Now.") The best time came early
on, in "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere": his solo bumped and skidded through brief
shardlike ideas, with feedback peeking out at the edges.
The set proceeded through 13 of the 20 classic-rock radio staples on "Then
and Now," with a few rarities, "Drowned" and "It Don't Happen That Way at
All," performed by Mr. Townshend and his longtime band mate the singer Roger
Daltrey, alone with acoustic guitars.
One of the two new songs appended to the new compilation disc - offerings
that qualify the "Now" of the title - is Mr. Townshend's "Real Good Looking
Boy." The band played it on Saturday, and it is dreadful. The narrator
meditates on his own childhood ugliness and his admiration of a rock star's
glamour; it's probably Elvis Presley, as the song interpolates "Can't Help
Falling in Love." Finally love redeems the ugly boy. It extends Mr.
Townshend's trope of self-examination; it also sounds, with its moral
corniness and melodic narrowness, like something at the worst end of
commercial country music.
Mr. Townshend and Mr. Daltrey can't pretend: they're a 59- and a
60-year-old, half of a beloved band, scoring points off collective memory
for an overwhelmingly middle-aged male audience. There is both modesty and
vainglory in this pose. (Zak Starkey, on drums, rigorously avoided playing
Keith Moon's famous drum fills, as he did for the band's last tour two years
ago. Pino Palladino played bass, replacing John Entwistle, who died in 2002.
Mr. Townshend's brother, Simon Townshend, provided all but inaudible rhythm
guitar and backup singing, and Rabbit Bundrick played keyboards.)
Cheerfully Mr. Townshend joked about persevering. "I have an expensive
racing program in the Mediterranean to pay for," he said, smirking. At
another point he grew serious, thanking the audience for its loyalty; it has
stuck with him, after all, through his recent arrest in England for
possessing child pornography. (He was cleared of the charges in May 2003 but
was formally cautioned by the police.)
Mr. Daltrey, who played acoustic guitar for several songs, spoke much less
but gave the fans what they wanted, and a bit more: during one of his
patented microphone-as-lariat moments, the cord flew out of his hands and
into the audience. He ran to the lip of the stage, registering embarrassment
and concern.
Mr. Townshend and Mr. Daltrey could be writing more new songs, but this band
has been breaking up, each time theoretically for good, since Moon died in
1978. They could change their sound, or find new stimuli, or be more elegant
and stop publicly calling it quits. But having problems with being in a rock
band has always been the Who's chemistry. Once they were uncool in a way
that worked. Now they're just uncool.
Correction: May 27, 2004, Thursday
A review on Monday about the Who concert on Saturday misstated the charge on
which Peter Townshend, the lead guitarist, was arrested in Britain last
year. It was suspicion of possessing indecent images of children - not
possession of child pornography. (As the review noted, he was cleared but
cautioned by the police.)
The review also misstated the title of one song performed on acoustic
guitars by Mr. Townshend and Roger Daltrey and characterized another
incorrectly. The title is "Naked Eye"; part of the refrain is "It don't
happen that way at all." The song "Drowned" has been performed in concert by
the Who many times; it is not a rarity
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