20 Mar 2011

ROGER’S WARM UP GIG FOR TOMMY

Roger Daltrey and his band performed Tommy last night at the O2 Academy in Bournemouth. Like the concert next week (March 24) at the Royal Albert Hall in London, the proceeds of this concert are going towards the Teenage Cancer Trust.
 

 
When he and the band came on stage, Roger started off by asking everyone to observe a minute’s silence for the audience to think about and sympathise with the terrible things that the Japanese people are suffering at the present time. Everyone respected this silence.
 
And then there was music. 2 full hours of it. A complete ‘Tommy’ plus selections from Roger’s 2009 ‘Use it or Lose it’ tour.
 
Roger prefaced the performance by saying that the intention was to take the work back to where it had begun, to recreate the harmonies and musicality of the piece.
 
This performance by Roger Daltrey and his band of hand-picked young Californian musicians plus the one and only Simon (brother of Pete) Townshend, was a revelation. This was no decibel-crunching, ear-splitting Who performance and didn’t pretend to be. How could it without the unique chemistry that exists when Roger and Pete share a stage? But it had something else. This was a more lyrical interpretation of Tommy. The balance between the musicians was finely wrought. And, most tellingly, Roger deliberately played the part of a band member rather than a front man. This was a delicious performance played by the highest calibre musicians, who honoured and celebrated some of the absent Pete Townshend’s finest work.
 
Roger, incidentally, announced at one point that The Who were definitely NOT finished. So watch this space!
 
Setlist
 
TOMMY
OVERTURE
IT’S A BOY
1921
AMAZING JOURNEY
SPARKS
EYESIGHT TO THE BLIND (THE HAWKER)
CHRISTMAS
COUSIN KEVIN
THE ACID QUEEN
DO YOU THINK IT’S ALRIGHT?
FIDDLE ABOUT
PINBALL WIZARD
THERE’S A DOCTOR
GO TO THE MIRROR!
TOMMY, CAN YOU HEAR ME?
SMASH THE MIRROR
SENSATION
MIRACLE CURE
SALLY SIMPSON
I’M FREE
WELCOME
TOMMY’S HOLIDAY CAMP
WE’RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT
SEE ME, FEEL ME / LISTENING TO YOU
 
WHO ARE YOU
DAYS OF LIGHT
FREEDOM RIDE
GOING MOBILE (SIMON TOWNSHEND)
PICTURES OF LILY
I CAN SEE FOR MILES
MY GENERATION
YOUNG MAN BLUES
BABA O’RILEY
WITHOUT YOUR LOVE
 
When Tommy comes to London on Thursday at the Royal Albert Hall, it will be accompanied by a stunning new visual interpretation which has been created in 4 short weeks by students at Middlesex University.