Sunday, February 07, 2010

The Who Play the Super Bowl (VIDEO)


As someone who's been a fan of The Who since the 1960s, I was delighted to see the band play the Super Bowl halftime show tonight, even though they weren't in touring form and only had a 12-minute window to play as many segments of songs as they could squeeze into that time.

Here's what was in The Who's medley: “Pinball Wizard” into “Baba O’Riley,” “Who Are You,” a bit of “See Me/Feel Me” (from Tommy), and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”

The New York Times noted that The Who "exhibited flashes of age and familiarity," whereas Rachel Sklar over at Mediaite echoed my reactions to the show: would've liked some lesser-known tunes, but overall thought it was a great show. (Judge for yourself in the videos of the performance, unfortunately split into two parts.)


Speaking of which, how old are the members of The Who these days? According to The Times (which seems to have trouble getting dates right these days), guitarist/songwriter Pete Townshend is 64, and singer Roger Daltrey is 65. I wasn't sure who the bassist was, but the drummer was Zak Starkey, son of Richard Starkey (better known as Ringo Starr). Zak has been The Who's drummer since the mid-'90s, and is a relative youngster at 44.

The Who was my favorite of the top rock groups growing up, even more than the Rolling Stones and The Beatles. I was glad to see them rocking out on such a big stage, and hope the performance wins them some new fans and sells some albums.

2 comments :

j said...

Me too! Hated all the negative comments on Twitter after the show. If you closed your eyes, you'd have never known how old they all are. May we all still rock like that when we're 65!

Dave B said...

Thanks for the comment. Hey, I don't look like I did 30 years either, but I'm still alive & kicking!