I will start with the complete truth of how I felt the gig went.
The Who are touring their 50th anniversary, the two original London dates were cancelled last year after Roger Daltrey became ill and was advised by his doctors to rest his voice. Now every Who fan knows that Roger gives it 110% when he sings, to bring across the brilliantly written Pete Townshend songs - Love, Reign O'er Me was in the middle of the set and it did not disappoint. Daltrey sang it like he would have done in the 70's, with sheer passion - the scream bellowed through the O2.
Now I must admit I noticed that Daltrey did forget a few lyrics and missed a few song queue's but his only human!! I mean bloody hell, if you were still rocking at the age of 71 I think the whole stadium would let you off if you had a few slip ups a long the way. I remember being told that Richard Ashcroft had once forgot the words to Bittersweet Symphony and Liam Gallagher had to save the day by singing the rest of the song as Ashcroft's mind had just gone blank. I am sure it's every singers fear to forget the words....but it happens.
The band is still full of energy, Pete is bouncing around and windmilling, his playing was fantastic as it always is. It made my night that A Quick One While His Away was still on the set list and that Townshend also introduced the song by mentioning their fabulous performance on The Rolling Stones Rock & Roll Circus. I felt like not a lot of the crowd knew what that song was. Why not?! Although its one of The Who's more light hearted songs, it doesn't make it any less better than some of their other hits. Daltrey cracked out the harmonica for a few songs including Magic Bus and it was on point! His one of the artists who made the harmonica popular in the 60's and man is he good at it - he has that blues sound perfect.
I now associate Zak Starkey as a member of The Who, so I get just excited to see him as I do about seeing Townshend and Daltrey. Last time I saw The Who it was the Quadrophenia tour and to my dismay Zak wasn't drumming on that tour! So seeing him this time round was great, his a fantastic replacement for Keith Moon. Zak has great energy when he plays and OK he doesn't fill in every gap in a song but he does bring the same power house to each song which Keith originally brought to the band.
Without going through every song on the set list and telling you what was great about it because I shouldn't have to - The Who have been around for 50 years and this tour proves that they have some of the greatest songs in the history of British music.
Townshend made a comment while introducing the first song of the night I Can't Explain, saying that 'This song was written before most of you were fucking born' and his right there was a lot of young people there celebrating The Who's 50th anniversary. It proves that The Who's music still makes an impact on youngsters today and that's why for me The Who will live on in music for another 50 years and longer.
The camera on my phone was broken when I went to the gig so all the images and videos used are not my images.
