Dutch Air Guitar Championships

The Who? Do they still exist? Is one of the best rock live act of the seventies still going strong or just in business to cash in on an old reputation, as many old pop and rockacts do nowadays. On June the 6th, the band played the Ahoy-venue in Rotterdam, The Netherlands together with opening act The Cult. And what a show it was. Classics like ‘My Generation’, ‘Subtitute’, ‘See Me, Feel Me’ and ‘Pinball Wizard’ were played as if the band was just starting a career in rockbizz. A legendary band and a great performance.  Beforehand, yours truly had great doubts about going to a Who-concert. OK, they were a great band in the sixties and seventies and a great example to numorous bands (U2, Oasis, all punkbands) but isn’t the band just touring because they would only be bored by not doing so? Well, all my prejudices were countered by the band themselves, still going strong after being on the road for 40 odd years. Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend are the only survivors of the legendary line-up, which included Keith Moon on drums and John Entwistle on bass. The band was legendary for its excesses, especially those of Keith Moon and the destructive powers of Townshend smashing up guitars. Nowadays, the band seems more like a team effort than in those glory days, when shows could be either great or terrible. Daltry and Townshend are in charge, but they have found a great drummer in Zak Starkey, ’son of Ringo’, who is becoming a legend in his own right. Great drumming and good bassplaying by Pino Palladino as well as second guitar player Simon Townshend, brother of Pete, offered Daltrey and Townshend the possibility to focus on what they are good at: creating a great rock and roll show.

From the opening riffs of ‘I Can’t Explain’, Townshend showed his trademark ‘windmill’, and he is still the king in doing so. Even at air guitar championships I haven’t seen better windmills than those by Townshend last night, and I counted hundreds. Daltrey also showed off with his trademark microphone-slinging, with which he could have reached olympic glory in the rhytmic gymnastics department. But besides the class of Daltrey and Townshend, the band showed to be a team rather than a group of individuals. In the 2 hour show, the band played almost all great songs from the past, like ‘Who Are You’, ‘Pinball Wizard, ‘My Generation’ (in an extended jamming version), ‘Anyway, Anywhere, Anyhow’, Ýou Better, You Bet’ and the best song of the evening ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’.

The encores started sloppy with ‘The Kids Are Allright’, which showed that the band lost the flow after walking offstage. But they quickly returned to form and ‘See Me, Feel Me’ showed a great rockband back in form. The Who showed that ‘dying before I get old’ (the famous line from ‘My Generation’) isn’t always the best option. The Who can still show young bands how to write great songs, play them loud and show audiences a great show. A lesson to all. No, ‘I Won’t Get Fooled Again’, The Who are still one of the best live bands in the world.

Opening act ‘The Cult’, one of my favorite rockbands, only got 30 minutes to show what they got and this was too short to impress, although the band tried the best they could and got a positive response from the audience. It was clear though that the band was almost completely modelled after The Who. In two weeks time, the band will have an opportunity to show what they really got in The Melkweg, Amsterdam. A review of this concert will be added as a reply to this article.

Footage of The Who in their heyday

The Zimmers, a cultphenomena in the UK at this moment: Hope I Die Before I Get Old?

1minutemanager score:

The Who:

The Cult: