The Who

Forty-one years separate the first video below, from the second.





I was going to conclude with: No comment. But what the heck.

As a teenager in the 1980s, I was primarly a Beatles freak. But it was hard not to take note of the Who's final concert in Toronto in 1982. Long Live Rock (Be it Dead or Alive)!



So when they reunited in 1985 for Live Aid, I had to watch. The video feed cut off halfway through "My Generation."



In 1989, the band reunited, played "Tommy" -- and came to Exhibition Stadium in Toronto, backed by a horn section.



It  was strangely disappointing. Still, there they were. I'd finally seen them in the flesh.

Then in 2006, they put out their first album since the early 1980s and played in Toronto again. I went.



I sat at the far end of the Air Canada Centre and thought: Pete is a guitar god.

I thought, They don't make 'em like that any more.

I thought I was 15 again.

I thought, I will remember this for the rest of my life.

All kidding aside, it was a remarkable concert. For one, the audience had 15-year-olds and 70-year-olds. And the band was LOUD. It was everything the 1989 concert hadn't been. I thought, This is The Who. This is the Who of the 1970s. And isn't Zach Starkey having the time of his life, acting out Keith Moon.

In a book of interviews, Bono recounts seeing The Who at the post-9/11 concert in NYC. He says they walked in, looking like longshoremen, and U2 felt like amateurs.

Okay, I don't really have anything to say. Except, Hope I die (before I get old).