The Who started the North American leg of their The Music Is Over farewell tour Saturday night on the Amerant Financial institution Enviornment in Dawn, Florida. And though this isn’t technically a Who’s Subsequent tour, their set featured seven of the 9 songs from the 1971 landmark LP. That features “Going Cellular,” which the Who had by no means earlier than performed reside.
“Going Cellular” is Pete Townshend’s ode to a life lived on the highway, and he sang lead on it himself. “I don’t care about air pollution,” he sang. “I’m an air-conditioned gypsy/That’s my resolution/Watch the police and the tax man miss me/I’m cell.”
To be clear, this wasn’t the primary time members of the Who’ve carried out the track reside. Pete Townshend performed it in February 2000 at two particular solo Lifehouse concert events at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London, England. And it’s been featured at 141 Roger Daltrey concert events between 2009 and the current. Every time, Simon Townshend — Pete’s youthful brother and Daltrey’s longtime solo bandleader — performed guitar and delivered the vocals.
However till Saturday evening, it hadn’t been achieved at an precise Who live performance. Simon Townshend has been a part of the Who’s touring band since 1996 (except for their 1999/2000 tour), and he as soon as once more dealt with the “Going Cellular” vocals though his brother Pete was on the opposite aspect of the stage.
Which means we now have 144 reside performances of “Going Cellular” throughout Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, and Who concert events. Simon Townshend has sang it 142 instances, Pete Townshend sang it twice, and we nonetheless have but to see Pete sing it on the identical stage as Roger.
And regardless of many full performances of Tommy and Quadrophenia over time, the Who has by no means achieved Who’s Subsequent straight by means of. At this level, they only want so as to add “Getting In Tune” and “My Spouse” to make it occur. They’ve achieved “Getting In Tune” as not too long ago as 2014, and it wouldn’t take nice effort to carry it again.
“My Spouse,” nonetheless, is a really completely different story as a result of John Entwistle wrote it and sang lead. They haven’t achieved any of his signature songs since he died in 2002. However they confronted the same dilemma with “Bell Boy” on the 2012/13 Quadrophenia tour since that’s a Keith Moon tune. They solved it by exhibiting archival live performance footage of Moon singing the track. In the event that they needed to carry “My Spouse” again, they may do one thing comparable with an outdated Entwistle video.
The remainder of the Who’s Music Is Over setlist was practically an identical to the reveals they performed final month in Italy. It contains practically all of their hits alongside a handful of deep cuts like “I’ve Had Sufficient,” “Tea & Theatre,” Love Ain’t For Keepin’,” and “The Music Is Over.” The latter track is the final track they performed with longtime drummer Zak Starkey earlier than a really messy separation with him earlier this 12 months.
The Who’s tour continues Tuesday evening in Newark, New Jersey. The U.S. leg wraps up September 28 in Las Vegas. As of now, there’s no phrase about extra abroad dates.
