Und nachdem ich heute morgen im Shoutboard das hier gelesen hab, mach ich wirklich keine Urlaubspläne, bis ich die Oppas höchstselbst auf einer Bühne gesehen hab:
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The Sun
ON Monday night at the Albert Hall in London, what’s left of The Who were wheeled on to the stage in their bath chairs.
The drummer went west in a puddle of vomit years ago and the bassist died recently in a blizzard of hookers and cocaine in a Las Vegas hotel room.
So for the gig we were left with 58-year-old guitarist Pete Townshend, who’s as deaf as a barn door, and 60-year-old singer Roger Daltrey, who had a cold.
You’d have expected them to be as useful as a fingerless mountaineer.
But they were brilliant because, unlike today’s bands who just warble their way through to the next miserable pay cheque, they still seem to be angry about pretty much everything.
Daltrey was angry with his ear piece because it was full of feedback. And, as usual, Townshend seemed pretty angry about life in general.
Having made a little speech thanking fans, friends and family for sticking with him through the ridiculous child sex Internet business last year, he launched into Good Looking Boy.
And followed it up with the Kids Are All Right.
Sadly, the political message of this song was lost on the middle-aged audience who turned to one another as it began and said: “Yes, my kids are definitely alright. We’ve got a very good babysitter.”
When I first saw The Who back in 1975, everyone went home afterwards on the bus.
This week everyone went home in a Volvo Estate with the words from Quadrophenia ringing in their ears: “I’m wet and I’m cold. But thank God I ain’t old.”
Quite the reverse actually. Thank God I am old. Thank God I come from a generation that produced bands as epic as this.
Bands that are still loud and proud, despite the drugs and the death, after 40 years. That night the support act was a young outfit called The Coral.
And when I say young, let me put it this way — they should thank their lucky stars the gig was in the school holidays or at least two of them would have been unable to make it.
They were pretty good, in a Doorsy, Stonesy sort of way, but they seem to have forgotten their music was created by black people in the southern States who really did have a gripe. The Coral’s big problem is that they don’t have a message. They don’t seem to be cross about anything.
It’s the same story with all of them really. I mean Bill Gates, or whatever it is he’s called, doesn’t even seem to be mildly perturbed by his stammer.
And Busted. Jesus, they are a 600cc diesel engine to The Who’s V8. I’ve seen more energy and anger in a tree.
Maybe young people these days are just too comfortable. A report this week says there are now more TV sets in the country than people and enough microwave ovens to make everyone the size of a sofa.
But come on. Having a television in your bedroom and a job answering the phone at a call centre, surely that’s not all you want out of life.
So put your PlayStation down for five minutes, work yourself into a lather and your hair into a Mohican and let some of that emotion out on stage.
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