Quadro-fucking-Phenia

So myself being the untimely retro git that i am, bought tickets for what i anticipated as a show with two nearly dead men and two corpse's music being played. Thats right i went to see the Who at the O2 on the 15th of June.

So i'll give you a slight overview of what i saw, what went on, and how my rather depressing expectation was proven to be full of shit.

I arrived fairly early lingered around the O2 arena and was generally getting hyped for the Who for nearly 2 hours before the barriers opened. I was amongst the first handful of people into the stadium (proudly sneaking in a camera against the O2's rules).

The opening act a soulful retro R&B act called Vintage Trouble (more on them in a later post) impressed me enough that i was on the edge of my seat from Block C (the furthest you could get while being on the ground bit, which wasn't actually that far away). As the venue slowly filled, Roger Daltrey came on the stage looking like a old granny, With Pete Townshend strolling on with a hat on him which reminded me of a ageing Chicago gangster.

Going straight off with 'The Real me' and ending with 'Love 'Reign Over Me' I began to realise that the term "Rock Opera" actually meant something and wasn't just fancy words thrown together, i realised it was a opera made of Rock, and that Pete Townshend was a genius, a true genius of our times.

During the performance you got the feeling that although they obviously yearned for the past (Keith Moon in Bell Boy, and John Entwistle in 5:15) they were contented as Roger said at the end "there's still life in the old fuckers".

Their Encore which wasn't really a encore was packed with greatest hits which made everyone in the audience young and old (the average age was probably 40 something) explode, although the highlight was without a doubt Roger's scream in 'Won't get fooled again'.

Rock may be weaker than it has been for years but fuck it as Roger said in Glasgow "who do you think we are? Justin Fuckin Bieber?"


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