28 Mar 2025

Teenage Cancer Trust Shows: Thursday 28 March 2024

27 March 2025 – Royal Albert Hall, London

Good news; The Who are back . . .

Yes, it’s good to have it happen, for starters. Not only a show, but two this week, and promise/hope for future things. It’s been discussed all week, but there are no plans yet. (Well, except for Italy in July, that IS happening!) On the bigger side, there are hopes of seeing the world again, places only done once, or not at all. And the usual spots (of course those are possible) with The Who v6.2 or whatever version this is, being who they are for the crowd that wants to come.

And so it is tonight, people from all over the world coming to the old Royal Albert Hall. This is a revered venue for historical reasons and for beauty, but once in here, we realize it’s also a great-sounding room. It’s much superior to the rectangular concrete box we were in for rehearsals. The drums don’t sound harsh, the guitars and vocals have a soft haze around them, rather than a hard echo. The crew have done their usual setup, simultaneously marveling at the amount of space we have without an orchestra, but also that we ever made this AND an orchestra fit into the same stage.

Soundcheck was long, almost too long. They ran through the basics; usually ‘Who Are You’ is ground-zero for rock band plus backing track. Then ‘I Can See for Miles’ to work out the vocal balances. ‘Eminence Front’ is partly worked out, only so that a Pete vocal song can be tested. Today, however, they feel the need to work on songs, so a couple of rare tunes were worked over, one rejected for being a bit too long, the other will appear tonight. A third wasn’t even attempted. After we’d had discussions about changing up the setlist with older surprises,  it basically didn’t happen; they’re working hard to just to regain ground that seemed lost during the orchestral years. So just playing the old familiar tunes has become hard enough. A lot to remember. (Zak told me that in the year 2000 he was tasked to come up with a set of obscure-but-cool Who tunes to play in/out of the tour set lists. He chose a bunch of his favorites – ‘Melancholia’ is the only one he remembers now, an exceptional choice, I must say!!! They practiced these new pieces for days and then went on tour; none of them were ever played. Ah well, history repeats itself.)

After nearly an hour onstage working on things, Roger is going to try something different tonight; no in-ear monitors, just the natural sound of the stage and his floor monitors. He felt that the spacing was much bigger than before – which they don’t like; we try to keep things in their vicinity very consistent, so the sound and cables etc always work well. Yet Roger perceived a different spacing. It’s because (a) no orchestra around us, that space is so open, and (b) there is a front stage edge, about five feet that curves around the front. It’s given us a distance he doesn’t usually see, so he feels detached from the audience here. Regardless, the stage setup is measured and accurate, the show will go on. Without his in-ear monitors, Roger has us bring forward his rear wedge speakers, the ones that feed him drum sounds. This makes the drums feel closer to him, which is helpful.

Level 42 is our supporting band. They’ve brought a loud and lively show tonight, with Mark King still leading a group of amazing players. Their show is more animated than ours, with band members coming and going all over the stage. It goes over well, and then everyone’s ready for the next act . . .

Everyone is excited and not quite tense, but uncertain. We have a new setlist, haven’t played in a while, and Pete’s still recovering. So it starts, and Roger shouts “Who the f*** are you!” right before they begin, a great welcome . . . ‘I Can’t Explain’ is first, a longtime classic. It works, but is not too impressive. Then ‘Substitute’, which fares much better. Pete thanks everyone for coming back to the TCT concerts, a charity they’ve started over 20+ years ago. He says “We couldn’t do it without you. Well, we could, but it wouldn’t raise much money!” He also warns the crowd of his knee-replacement surgery only four or five weeks ago. He says he can play, but there won’t be any silly dances tonight. Rog jokes “What did you do with your old one?!” “I’ll be auctioning it off!” says Pete. Then they go talk about what other people have done with their extracted bones. It’s not that Pete can’t move from the surgery, it’s the downtime and medications leaving him less-than-ideal. The surgery was necessary, and the TCT events are always booked a year or more, so that couldn’t be moved. So with not-ideal timing, here is Pete’s first show with a new knee. He admits it’s a struggle.

‘Who Are You’ just rocks, with a wild solo from Pete; he’s played it very angular and dissonant these last few rehearsal days. I think he’s just messing-around, and I know he’s a fan of dissonant music (like Sun Ra.) But Roger is always thrown off by this, as it sounds like bad playing to him.

Video courtesy of The Gazzas (Get your thumb off the lens, Gary!)

Roger dedicates ‘I Can See For Miles’ to a young 19-year-old girl he’d met on a TCT wing. She was bright and funny, eager and positive. She’d had bruises on her legs, that people told her to ignore, then others didn’t diagnose it properly. When they found it was leukemia, it was too late for her. So she’d passed on, but LOVED the space and care that the Teen Cancer Trust hospitals were giving her. His speech was very moving, and I hope somebody caught it online (hint: ALWAYS film between the songs! It’s unique to the night and often the best gems of the show will be between songs!)

We have a good video team, capturing the closeups of the band from different angles, which are shown on a single big screen right behind the stage. This screen is amazing quality – brighter and sharper than we’ve had. There were five years with orchestra (no screen) so this is the technology that’s happening meanwhile. We do miss Math Giroux and our Canadian video team: they are part of our daily family for ages and ages. Math really knows how to catch the best moments of our show, hundreds of little choices like drum fills or Pete guitar moves. But having someone inexperienced, we get to see all the other stuff; it’s interesting but doesn’t hype up the audience response as much as usual.

The lighting is cool, with things looking a lot darker around the band, which makes the lights pop-out when they hit the players. The contrast is good, which shows up well on the big screen. Tom Kenny is back, as always, working the lighting desk. It’s not “our own lighting rig”, so our programmer from previous tours Fuji Convertino and Tom work out a design that’s “ready to go” just for these special concerts. Everybody looked really cool tonight, as a result.

Pete asks the audience if anyone misses the orchestra. Everyone yells “NOOOO”. But Pete says, “I do . . . ” and explains that they covered so many of the parts he could just mess around on guitar . . .

‘Love Ain’t for Keeping’ shows up, with a new abrupt start (right on the first vocal) as-designed by Roger. This is quite a surprise for those who know, and there were literally screams as they broke into it. Roger’s absolutely amazing on these shows, and this is another one he sails through with ease. Then into what was supposed to be a quieter “acoustic set” – which began as maybe four or five songs. Now it’s two, and they’re not really acoustic versions: They have acoustic guitar, but the other instruments play along, such as electric bass and organ. ‘The Seeker’ and ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ are in this set, with ‘The Seeker’ getting especially groovy with dual acoustic guitars.

After the acoustic set, Roger leans right into ‘The Real Me’ I think before the band was ready, and they launch instantly into it. Well, most do, but not quite together. And the ending definitely fell apart, with different numbers of repeats in different people’s ‘eads! As he did at the front, Roger ends it alone with “Can you see the real me, me, me, me . . .” which helps fix what otherwise would have been a train wreck.

‘5:15 ‘almost starts, then Pete calls a halt and they do begin again, much more solidly. Roger has told Pete to take an extended solo and he does, pushing it further along. It’s not outstanding among the live-jam versions of this song, but it’s a fun moment when the improvisational side starts to get going. ‘Love Reign O’er Me’ starts next, always beautiful and stunning even without the drama of the orchestra. Roger’s voice is marvellous, and Pete mentions it afterward.

Looking back on the various musical issues seen throughout the night, he adds “Tonight isn’t perfect, but it could have been a lot f***ing worse! How appropriate, because ‘My Generation’, the song they rehearsed for over an hour the other day, still fell apart tonight! Maybe it’s just not so easy to get this one working again. This leads into ‘Cry If You Want’ which then leads into ‘See Me/Feel Me/Listening to You’. And that all seems to go basically well. Then the heavy closing set:

‘Eminence Front’
‘You Better You Bet’
‘Baba O’Riley
‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’

That’s a pretty strong set of tunes back-to-back. All of them classics. Tonight, they are all welcome back into our lives, at least one more time. They finish and bow, announce the band, and then it quietens as Roger proposes just one more. ‘Tea and Theatre’ from the 2006 album, is back as a quiet ending. It’s an intimate moment, not exactly the story of Pete and Rog (it’s written about two other characters) but the feeling rings true. Pete struggles with his fingers on this one, the fingerpicking is rather tricky. He restarts and restarts, then finally gets it going. Later on, the same happens and he stops briefly . . . “Just like rehearsal”, and it was. Still the big voice booms out in this room, such a strong/quiet ending to proof that The Who are still here and still able to do it! There’s only room to grow, and I look forward to Sunday, when the opening-night jitters have been swept away.

Onward!

Tonight’s Set List (WARNING! Look away now if you don’t wish to know . . .)

I Can’t Explain
Substitute
Who Are You
The Kids Are Alright
I Can See for Miles
Bargain
Pinball Wizard
Love Ain’t for Keeping
The Seeker
Behind Blue Eyes
The Real Me
5:15
I’m One
Love, Reign O’er Me
My Generation which segued into . . .
Cry If You Want which segued into . . .
See Me, Feel Me / Listening To You
Eminence Front
You Better You Bet
Baba O’Riley
Won’t Get Fooled Again
Tea & Theatre