Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Rock Music: Grading The Who at the Super Bowl
Posted by Rob Nichols on Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 4:00 AM
Can you trust me to tell you the what's-what about the Who at the Super Bowl, on their "Close Encounters for the Guitar Hero Generation" stage? I think you can.
HIGHLIGHTS
The Good:
Pete Townshend's guitar - Screw the talk of age; either you can play like this or not. And the windmilling, chord-crunching, rock and roll showman Townshend was in the moment. Made me smile.
Roger's ragged voice - It's tore up, no question about it. But it sounded as good as it has in a long while. Interesting close-ups of him stopping singing and the voice still coming thorugh the speakers. I always wonder how much is taped and synced and shit like that. Lots of rough spots but a couple moments where I thought he had some vocal support from a backing track.. not that I want it, but I am just telling you that 's what I saw.
Harmonica runup at end of "Baba O'Riley" - Outstanding. Pumped life into the final minute of the song. Made it a memorable performance.
Zak Starkey channeling his dad - Ringo Starr is his father, and Zak has played with The Who for a long, long time. He ain't Keith Moon, but doesn't need to be. And he's not as bombastic as Kenney Jones, who came after Keith. He sounds like Ringo in his heydey, if he drummed for The Who. And that's pretty cool.
Crunchy with gloss - Lots of keyboard but plenty of scraping of guitar strings and slightly out-of-sync singing, in the great rock and roll tradition of, well, The Who. Message boards are talking about bad harmonies. But to me, it's just rock music on a live stage. Still better pitch than Taylor Swift will ever find.
Band got loose - It was during "Won't Get Fooled Again" - a song simultaneously killed and given new life from TV - and they seemed to enjoy their moment and let loose a bit.
The Bad
Computer help? - See the note on Roger's singing above
No Crowd - a ton of field lighting and effects, and no on-the-field crowd for the first time in forever. Different and visually stunning, but if you go back and watch Springsteen the year earlier at halftime, there is an intimacy that was missing this year. So was most of the energy feed, from crowd to band, that can still happen, even in 12 minutes of a staged event. But fit The Who's legend as this bigger-than-myth band. Made Springsteen's show look like a bar gig from an R&B/rock band. Which is, truthfully, what they are and part of their genius.
Middle of "Who are You" - How come they didn't say "who the fuck are you?"? Just sayin'...
GRADING THE SONGS
"Pinball Wizard": B / Remember when Pete would only play acoustic because of the ringing in his ears? Now back to electric, this was nice reminder of how full and engaging his acoustic guitar work is. Good short open, but nothing transcendent.
"Baba O'Riley": A / Better than everything else. As the band was probably just getting warmed up, it still rocked and Pete sang the "teenage wasteland' lyric in the middle section, and connected with the crowd, who could be heard in the background. Great Daltrey harp solo. They nailed it all.
"Who are You": B / Saved by an anthemic beginning and Townshend's power chording windmalls at the end. Kinda laid there in the middle. But kudos for the beautiful raggedness of an epic song.
"See Me. Feel Me" portion from "Tommy"): B+ / So short but gotta love a little bit of something that might be considered a surprise. Too brief (about :25) to earn an A, but nice touch.
"Won't Get Fooled Again": A- / Band was sweating and Starkey played a drum solo that sounded just like Ringo on The Beatles song "the End" from Abbey Road. Magical and shiver-inducing.
Easy for bloggers and writers to rip up for any number (age, corporate tie-in, etc...) of reasons, it actually a pretty great performance. I wasn't trying to either like or trash them; consider me just one guy who knows enough about live rock and roll to be able to tell if it was good or not. And it was.
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