Seemingly from the moment they walked off the stage, The Who\u2019s performance at 1970\u2019s Isle of Wight Festival was inscribed in rock legend: one of the most powerful live bands in the world delivering one of its greatest performances ever before a massive crowd of true believers. In fact, you could say the band broke the festival; with third-year crowds estimated at 650,000, Parliament shortly thereafter passed a law banning large-scale concerts on the island, a law that kept the festival dark for the next 32 years. <\/p>\n
Finally, in 2002, promoter John Giddings helped convince the authorities to amend the \u201c1971 Isle of Wight Act\u201d so that he could stage a festival for 10,000 fans. By the time The Who made a triumphant return to headline the reborn festival two years later, the crowd ceiling had been raised to a more generous 35,000. Of course, by then, the band the fans were coming to see was fundamentally different than it had been in 1970; drummer Keith Moon had passed away in 1978, followed in 2003 by bassist John Entwhistle. <\/p>\n
The Who in 2004 were a newly recast six-piece, with Roger Daltrey (vocals) and Pete Townshend (guitar and vocals) supported by John \u201cRabbit\u201d Bundrick on keyboards, Zak Starkey on drums, Pino Palladino on bass, and Simon Townshend (Pete\u2019s brother) on guitars and backing vocals. John Entwhistle\u2019s death the year before still loomed large in everyone\u2019s minds; for some time in 2003 it had been less than certain that the band would continue without either founding member of its rhythm section.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
But continue they did, and by the 2004 festival the new lineup had begun to gel into a tight unit, ferociously committed to doing justice to the music that had brought them together. The end result, while it could never match up to the category five hurricane that was their 1970 performance, is plenty impressive for what it is\u2014a middle-aged band down to two original members, but still full of grit and fire while delivering one classic track after another.<\/p>\n
Walking on stage with no introduction wanted or needed, they blaze straight into \u201cI Can\u2019t Explain,\u201d attacking it with a fervor that sets the entire crowd pogoing as Townshend windmills and Daltrey twirls his mike. Roger and Pete both appear healthy, fit and in good voice, and the band proves their chops immediately as they dive headlong into \u201cSubstitute\u201d and then \u201cAnyway, Anyhow, Anywhere.\u201d Time for a rest yet? Not exactly. Next up is a blazing performance of \u201cWho Are You,\u201d with Townshend wrenching notes from his guitar as if wrestling a python.<\/p>\n
Following a lively triple-shot of songs from Who\u2019s Next<\/i>\u2014\u201cBehind Blue Eyes,\u201d \u201cBargain\u201d and \u201cBaba O\u2019Riley\u201d\u2014they delve into the softer midsection of the show, mixing a few favorite deeper cuts (\u201cThe Punk And The Godfather,\u201d \u201c5:15,\u201d and an acoustic mini-set of \u201cDrowned\u201d and \u201cNaked Eye\u201d), with more familiar fare (\u201cLove Reign O\u2019er Me,\u201d \u201cEminence Front,\u201d \u201cYou Better You Bet\u201d) and \u201cReal Good Looking Boy,\u201d one of two new cuts recorded for their 2003 collection Then And Now<\/i>. <\/p>\n
The show proper ends with a bit of a stutter step. The furious thrash of \u201cMy Generation\u201d is followed by new track \u201cOld Red Wine,\u201d whose energetic performance by the band doesn\u2019t alter the fact that the largely non-plussed audience doesn\u2019t know the song. Recovering quickly from this misstep, the band swaggers straight into the cathartic rumble and thunder of set-closer \u201cWon\u2019t Get Fooled Again.\u201d The generous first encore is an extended Tommy<\/i> medley that includes all or part of \u201cPinball Wizard,\u201d \u201cAmazing Journey,\u201d \u201cSparks,\u201d \u201dSee Me, Feel Me,\u201d and \u201dListening to You,\u201d while the second encore finds the band offering a crowd-pleasing flashback with an extended, jamming take on classic 1968 single \u201cMagic Bus.\u201d<\/p>\n
The performance is far from perfect, with a number of minor flubs apparent, up to and including Daltrey aborting the harmonica outro to \u201cBaba O\u2019Riley\u201d after realizing he\u2019s picked up the wrong harp, that\u2019s been tuned for a different song. But don\u2019t let the perfect be the enemy of the very good; this set chronicles a wounded but determined band in the process of reconfirming that they still have what it takes. These songs were written by a man\u2014Townshend\u2014desperate to prove something to the world, and on this night he and The Who play them as they should be played, with reckless abandon and unquenchable fire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":33220,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5649],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-45029","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-who","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45029"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}