Among my friends I'm a music lover. I would've graduated with a minor in music but tuition is a hard hammer to my wallet.
Anyway they had "The Who" playing. I was at a party with a lot of people who had no idea who they were, so (like most of the time anyway) I was probably the only oddball excited to hear them play. Of course, it was a great (American) football game, but hey, how often are you gonna see the who play as years go on? I had a whole couch to myself at halftime because everyone else went to go stuff their face.
Good times good times, but moments like these make me feel old.
Heh... I think they're destined to fade into the background like so many others. I didn't watch the game, so I didn't see them play, but I'm glad they got such a high profile gig.
I remember saying to someone at an old job "I made it here in one playing of Stairway to Heaven!" and they were like "What's that?" and then I polled the staff and around 75% of people didn't know what it was.
i thought they were great... of course a bunch of 60 year olds aren't going to be spinning guitars around or jumping all over or smashing things, and the vocal range is probably not what it used to be, but all things considered it was a great production and a decent performance.
On February 09 2010 01:50 meeple wrote: Heh... I think they're destined to fade into the background like so many others. I didn't watch the game, so I didn't see them play, but I'm glad they got such a high profile gig.
You think The Who will fade, and you're happy they got such a high profile gig? You do realise that The Who is one of the most influential rock bands in history right? I mean, it's possible that they can fade eventually, but they've already been famous for like 45 years, so it's impossible that they'll fade "like so many others," because there are almost no other bands that have had a career as long as they have.
Also, one of the reasons I don't see them fading out any time too soon is because they have/had some of the truly great musicians of the classic rock era in them: Pete Townsend and Keith Moon. Even if The Who fades, their members will always be a link back to them for new generations IMO, The Who are as likely to fade as Pink Floyd or the Rolling Stones. It's possible but it will be a sad day.
Sorry if that reply came out quite harsh, it was just a very strange comment!
For some reason, the sound on ESPN was delayed during the half-time show, so it looked like they were lip-synching very badly. I eventually changed channels cause it was too bad :p
Dude, if 75% of Chill's coworkers don't know Stairway, I'm confident that The Who can be forgotten. Not by musicians who look to them for inspiration, sure. (All of them. In addition to Moon and Townshend, Entwistle was one of the best rock bassists of all time, and Daltrey is a pretty damn good rock vocalist.) But that only covers a few people.
It'll be a sad day, though. I've seen them live a couple times and they always give a great show. I thought the halftime show was about as good as it could have been, but there was no way it was going to be really excellent with so little time.
I grew up with The Who playing all the time (along with AC/DC and some other bands that are escaping me right now). It also didn't hurt that I went by Tommy when I was younger. I'll definitely never be able to forget them, and it's truly a shame that the new generations don't know them as well as they should.
I guess the Superbowl was a good enough reason to dig up their graves. Seeing these really old musicians play their thirthy year old hits is, at least to me, kinda sad. Let the music live, but the artists retire.
On February 09 2010 01:55 Chill wrote: I remember saying to someone at an old job "I made it here in one playing of Stairway to Heaven!" and they were like "What's that?" and then I polled the staff and around 75% of people didn't know what it was.
The who is one of my favorite bands but they are one of those bands were every member of the original group was essential and just having two left is kinda meh. I saw them when they came to seattle 2 years ago and i had pretty much the same complaints.
Honestly, the performance was a bit terse, regardless of how much you liked them. The band was founded over 50 years ago (1967) - so that is to be expected I guess...
The real problem is the organizers deliberately chose a very old band yet again. Ever since "the incident" they lacked the guts to do anything slightly moder or remotely edgy.
On February 09 2010 02:00 Pokebunny wrote: The Who were actually pretty disappointing imo. The stage/lighting/setup was amazing, really deserved a better performance lol.
Yep. I was at a similar party as the OP and I'm a fan of The Who, but I thought their performance sucked. To be fair, The Rolling Stones performance wasn't very good either. Only Pink Floyd and Zeppelin have kept it up.
On February 09 2010 03:44 citi.zen wrote: Honestly, the performance was a bit terse, regardless of how much you liked them. The band was founded over 50 years ago (1967) - so that is to be expected I guess...
The real problem is the organizers deliberately chose a very old band yet again. Ever since "the incident" they lacked the guts to do anything slightly moder or remotely edgy.
Yeah that's true; the Who is good but old, old but good. I'd rather that than Rhianna or Taylor Swift or Lady Gaga etc.
The halftime show was bad. It was very sad actually. I was afraid one of them was going to collapse on stage. The lighting and laser show/firework thing was really cool looking though.
Best halftime show I've seen was Prince. That was dooooope.
On February 09 2010 03:44 citi.zen wrote: Honestly, the performance was a bit terse, regardless of how much you liked them. The band was founded over 50 years ago (1967) - so that is to be expected I guess...
The real problem is the organizers deliberately chose a very old band yet again. Ever since "the incident" they lacked the guts to do anything slightly moder or remotely edgy.
It's possibly the demographic. The people going to the Super Bowl are more likely to know who the Who are while not give a crap about justin timberlake.
I have my doubts that the people most critical of The Who's performance have seen many other 40+ year old bands in present day shows. Instrumentalists usually stay strong, but it is damn near impossible to sing like you did when you were 25 at 65. Every old band still performing has this issue, and they sometimes even lower the key of their songs because their vocalist simply can't hit the high notes anymore. Being a huge classic rock fan, I've seen quite quite a lot of these retro performances, and I would consider The Who's brief superbowl show one of the better ones. You can't expect studio-version perfection, but the instrumentals seemed very strong and I thought Won't Get Fooled Again was really, really well done.
But I will admit my own personal bias as a fan of the band and that the amazing production values did give an artificial boost to the overall feeling of quality.
Edit: And the sound seemed to be in perfect sync for me.
Firstly their legends so I don't care how they sounded.
Even so, they didn't sound that bad, and rock and roll isn't about who can sing the best.
They rocked , and I don't expect hardly any Americans to know who the who are, I don't actually expect many of the football fans there to know where England even is on the world map.
On February 09 2010 04:39 3clipse wrote: Instrumentalists usually stay strong, but it is damn near impossible to sing like you did when you were 25 at 65. Every old band still performing has this issue, and they sometimes even lower the key of their songs because their vocalist simply can't hit the high notes anymore.
Not every band.
It's perfectly understandable that Daltrey and Jager can't sing like they used to (or arguably can't sing anymore) but then I don't think they should do reunion tours for exorbitant ticket prices and a subpar show.
On February 09 2010 04:39 3clipse wrote: Instrumentalists usually stay strong, but it is damn near impossible to sing like you did when you were 25 at 65. Every old band still performing has this issue, and they sometimes even lower the key of their songs because their vocalist simply can't hit the high notes anymore.
Well Robert Plant blows just about everyone out of the water. Your example is unfair. xD
That was a very good performance, but you can still tell Plant's range has decreased significantly since his prime.
On February 09 2010 05:39 Jibba wrote: It's perfectly understandable that Daltrey and Jager can't sing like they used to (or arguably can't sing anymore) but then I don't think they should do reunion tours for exorbitant ticket prices and a subpar show.
Really? I would much rather see a sub-par Yes or Pink Floyd or Zeppelin in my lifetime rather than never get to experience them live at all.
On February 09 2010 02:27 Hittegods wrote: I guess the Superbowl was a good enough reason to dig up their graves. Seeing these really old musicians play their thirthy year old hits is, at least to me, kinda sad. Let the music live, but the artists retire.
Have to agree with this. I'd rather see The Who play than a lot of other more current bands/artists, but it's still kind of...well, not depressing, but weird in a slightly sad way watching them play music they wrote 40 years ago without two of the original members.
Really? I would much rather see a sub-par Yes or Pink Floyd or Zeppelin in my lifetime rather than never get to experience them live at all.
To me, it almost seems anti-rock and roll to see them try and hang on to something that's not there anymore.
I guess I don't know what bands they could send out there to give a good performance. The impromptu, center stage setups they use just aren't good for live music, especially rock bands.