The Who - Big Boss Man

I came across a concert that The Who did in Passaic, N.J. in 1979. Above is the audio of the band performing "Big Boss Man," which is a cover of a song written by Luther Dixon and Al Smith, and although covered by many, is most notably done by Jimmy Reed. By the way, if you don't know the late Jimmy Reed, check out "Shame Shame Shame" here.

Robert Plant's New Song

Robert Plant is releasing an album with his revived Band of Joy. Rolling Stone has a clip of one of the songs, "Angel Dance,"which can be heard by clicking this. The album comes out in September. The rumors of a Led Zeppelin reunion tour are basically dead at this point. Recently, drummer Jason Bonham said a Led Zeppelin reunion with a different lead singer was considered. I think other than one-off concerts there will never be a full-fledged tour.

The Who - "Amazing Journey/Sparks" from Houston 1975

When The Who played The Summit in Houston, Texas in 1975, some believed and still believe it was the band's best concert ever. For me this is very debatable. I'm not sure how you can look at a career that has spanned nearly 50 years and say one performance is the definitive moment, however, this concert is really good. It's out there as a bootleg on DVD, but really, the band's management should consider having this cleaned up and released as an "official" DVD.

Regardless, the show contains a stellar performance of "Sparks." Pete Townshend was definitely on that night. I've never seen Pete have a bad performance, but some are better than others and this is one of those occasions.

The Who - "Amazing Journey/Sparks" at Tanglewood

I was forwarded this video of The Who performing "Amazing Journey/Sparks" at Tanglewood in Massachusetts in 1970. I never grow tired of comparing and contrasting performances of "Sparks" and it doesn't matter what era the performance comes from; they all hold up in my opinion.

The audio is courtesy of Wolfgang's Vault and it was synced up with some old video of the concert. The quality of the audio and video are perfect. It might not be a bad idea for the band's management to consider putting together a full-length DVD of this concert.

The Who News

Thanks to Roger Daltrey and his charity Teenage Cancer Trust, another cancer ward for teenagers has been opened. This one is in Newcastle, U.K. according to this story. Nice job. In a world of hearing stories about celebrities and politicians constantly getting into trouble, it's good to hear something positive.

Oh and I came across this article about the various Gibson guitars Pete Townshend has used over the years.

I read that The Smothers Brothers announced their retirement this week. The above video is a memorable performance of "My Generation" by The Who on the show.

Happy Birthday Pete Townshend!

Happy 65th Birthday to Pete Townshend! I only have maybe a handful of pop culture stars that I consider “heroes” and Pete is definitely one of them. I came across this video of Pete performing “Blue Red and Grey,” a song from The Who By Numbers album, which although I won’t/can’t say is the band’s best album, it is the one that resonated with me the most when I first heard it from start to finish, which wasn't until 1998.

Pete Townshend On John Entwistle's Importance

Pete Townshend - rock's thinking man - gave some interesting insight into the significance of John Entwistle for The Who. A fan wrote into The Who's Website and asked the following:

"Roger has been quoted as saying that John's volume was a problem in the later years due to his deafness. Did this have any impact on yourself during rehearsal/on stage at all? It always makes me laugh that Roger always stood in front of John's amps then said he was too loud!"

Pete's response:
"I always felt John was more important in the Who as a musician than Roger. (Ed: steady now). Maybe he was more important than Keith or me. He was certainly a better musician. So although I sympathized with Roger’s predicament, I also knew that Who fans worshipped John, and his sound, in a way that indicated an understanding of John’s real genius.

John was never too loud for my taste. I have had more trouble over the years with noisy drummers. However loud someone plays, all I care about is that they listen, so Roger is right on two counts. When John started to go deaf he couldn’t listen quite as well, and started to guess, and sometimes his guesses were wrong. And Roger could not simply turn up his volume, but if he did manage to get louder on stage it was often his vocal screams that hurt my ears, not loud bass. Let’s be honest, we were loud, maybe too loud, but the music, the period, the whole message we carried required absolute concentration from the audience. We used volume to guarantee that."

John's playing is perfectly exhibited in the above YouTube video from the Royal Albert Hall in 2000.