The Who - Sunday 30th March - Royal Albert Hall

Brief review:  We thought it would be impossible to get better seats than last year, but it turns out we were wrong. A fantastic view and support from Level 42 got the audience warmed up. And what an excellent bassist Mark King is (I think I last saw him at this venue in 1988!).

We hadn't gone to the first Who show this week (mainly on cost grounds, but also because experience shows that the 2nd show is usually better as they are more rehearsed!). The start of this one was underwhelming, mainly because it was so quiet (the Who are meant to be loud!). From our seats we couldn't hear Pete Townshend's guitar at all. Now it is notoriously difficult to get a good mix at the front of the stage, but Level 42's sound had been great. After about 5 songs, something changed, the volume went up and we could hear the guitar. Ironically, this must have triggered something in Roger Daltrey's earpieces as he started complaining about what he could and couldn't hear.

But from Pinball Wizard onwards, all was good and I enjoyed it as expected. We even got a live debut in "The Song Is Over" (from 1971!) There are rumours that this show could be a launchpad for another tour. Roger is 81, but his voice is still amazing, so count me in if that happens!

Venue and View:  3rd row, dead centre.

Setlists
Level 42

Heaven in My Hands
To Be With You Again
Running in the Family
The Sun Goes Down (Living It Up)
Starchild
Something About You
Lessons in Love
The Chinese Way
Hot Water

The Who
I Can't Explain

Substitute
Who Are You
The Kids Are Alright
Bargain
Pinball Wizard
Love Ain't for Keepin'
The Seeker (Acoustic)
Behind Blue Eyes (Acoustic)
The Real Me
5:15
I'm One
Love, Reign O'er Me
My Generation / Cry If You Want / See Me, Feel Me
Eminence Front
You Better You Bet
Baba O'Riley
Won't Get Fooled Again
The Song Is Over

The Who - Wednesday 20th March - Royal Albert Hall

Brief review:  Night 2 of the TCT Who shows. Slightly cheaper seats to the side, but the front row gave an excellent vantage point. As ever, the second show sees the band with more rehearsal time under their belts and arguably a better performance than on Monday. A highlight and change in the set was The Acid Queen. Regular readers may recall that I don't think Eddie Vedder is a great singer, but - to be fair - he did a decent guest spot here.

Venue and View:  Front Row in the left hand side-stalls.

Setlist
[With Orchestra]
Overture
1921
Amazing Journey
Sparks
The Acid Queen
Pinball Wizard
We're Not Gonna Take It
Who Are You
+
[Band Only]
The Kids Are Alright
Substitute
My Generation
Cry If You Want
You Better You Bet
Won't Get Fooled Again
Behind Blue Eyes
+
[With Orchestra]
The Punk And The Godfather (with Eddie Vedder)
I'm One
5:15
The Rock
Love, Reign O'er Me
Baba O'Riley

The Who - Monday 18th March - Royal Albert Hall

Brief review:  Night 1 of 2 Who shows this week in aid of Teenage Cancer trust at the Royal Albert Hall. Expensive, but great seats purchased. the band were on decent form, albeit predictably under-rehearsed. Pete Townshend seemed to catch them out in the first song by launching into I Can't Explain which he later claimed was on his setlist and not the others. But it was good to see the band in full electric mode for much of the set and the orchestra tracks worked well. Looking forward to the 2nd show in a couple of days.

Venue and View:  3rd row seats, right of centre.

Setlist
I Can't Explain
+
[With Orchestra]
Overture
Amazing Journey
Sparks
Pinball Wizard
We're Not Gonna Take It
Who Are You
Eminence Front
+
[Band Only]
The Kids Are Alright
You Better You Bet
Substitute
My Generation
Cry If You Want
Won't Get Fooled Again
Behind Blue Eyes
+
[With Orchestra]
The Real Me
I'm One
5:15
The Rock
Love, Reign O'er Me
Baba O'Riley

The Who - Friday 25th March - Royal Albert Hall

Brief review:  Another Who show supporting the excellent Teenage Cancer Trust at the Royal Albert Hall. Given the choice, I don't know any Who fans who would choose an acoustic set (or an orchestral one) over a full band electric show, but we should be grateful for the opportunity to see them nowadays - whatever form the show takes.

That said, they did look particularly under-rehearsed for this. Several songs were restarted due to something going wrong (forgotten words, wrong key, different intro etc) and Roger was so distressed with Break The News that he insisted they play it again to do it justice. It had the feel that you were gate crashing their rehearsal, which did give a certain charm. Well down the list of my favourite Who shows, but even on an off night, they are a cut above many others.

Venue and View:  Stalls seats to the left, level with the first few rows on the floor.

Setlist

[Acoustic]
Substitute
Squeeze Box
The Kids Are Alright
Tattoo
Behind Blue Eyes
Real Good Looking Boy
Break the News
Break the News (Repeated)
She Rocked My World
Beads on One String 
Eminence Front
Pinball Wizard
Who Are You
Let My Love Open the Door 
Baba O'Riley
Won't Get Fooled Again

Def Leppard - Sunday 25th March - Royal Albert Hall

Brief Review: More TCT at the Royal Albert Hall and this time we are in the affordable seats for Def Leppard. It's their debut at this venue and they are on good form. Lot's of chat from Joe Elliott and Phil Collen even managed to keep his shirt on! (RAH rules?). Seeing them at the O2 later in the year and looking forward to that.

Setlist
Won't Get Fooled Again (end only)
[after joining the Who studio audio intro tape]
Let's Go
Animal
Let It Go
Dangerous
Foolin'
Love Bites
Armageddon It
Rock On
Man Enough
When Love and Hate Collide
Rocket
Bringin' on the Heartbreak
Switch 625
Hysteria (with "Heroes" snippet in the end)
Let's Get Rocked
Pour Some Sugar on Me
+
Rock of Ages
Photograph

Teenage Cancer Trust Website

Roger Daltrey - Thursday 22nd March - Royal Albert Hall

Brief Review: The first of 2 shows this week for me in aid of the excellent Teenage Cancer Trust charity. Tonight we had front row tickets for the patron - Roger Daltrey. Support was from Beatles tribute "Dr. Pepper's Jaded Hearts Club Band" who include Matt Bellamy from Muse, Graham Coxton from Blur and members of Jets, Nine Inch Nails and the Zutons. They were good fun and played a selection of Beatles tracks primarily from their very early days. Sadly, Mr McCartney didn't guest as he had on one of their rare previous appearances.

Headliner Roger Daltrey treated us to an eclectic set of Who classics and rarities mixed in with some solo material. Overall, it was great - his voice holding up really well and backed by much of the Who touring band including Simon Townshend and Frank Simes. "The Real Me" was a personal highlight and he dedicated "Another Tricky Day" and "How Many Friends" to Mark Zucherberg of Facebook

Setlists

Roger Daltrey 
Overture
Pinball Wizard
Who Are You
Another Tricky Day
Behind Blue Eyes
Giving It All Away
Athena
I Can See for Miles
Days of Light
After the Fire
Going Mobile (Simon Townshend vocals)
How Many Friends
The Real Me
Without Your Love
Baba O'Riley
Young Man Blues
As Long As I Have You
Always Heading Home

Dr. Pepper's Jaded Hearts Club Band 
I Saw Her Standing There
Please Please Me
Bad Boy
Back in the U.S.S.R.
Money
Taxman
Can't Buy Me Love
Helter Skelter

Live Audio (Roger Daltrey full set)

"Dr Pepper" Live

The Who - Thursday 30th March - Royal Albert Hall

What a treat - Thunder and the Who in the same week. And as a bonus, TCT stalwart Noel Gallagher was added as a late support.

His acoustic set was a mixed bag. A few non-descript solo (HFB) songs and four Oasis classics including the dodgiest version of Wonderwall I've heard. If you are going to write one of pop's all time classic sing-a-long songs, why change it so that it has different emphasis and is much worse than it was? Leave that to Bob Dylan! The set was saved by a back-on-track version of "Don't Look Back In Anger" to finish.

Anyway, the premise for the headliners would be that this would be the World premier of "Tommy" - played acoustically. It turns out that the band felt that they couldn't make this work, so we got "Tommy" - electric!

Now I don't like to be critical of one of my favourite bands and one of the greatest of all time, but his was one of the weakest shows I've seen them do. Pete Townshend seemed pretty grumpy (I suspect he was finding it harder than normal playing a challenging set that hadn't been done for years [1989]), the sound volume was wildly inadequate (the mere thought of being able to be 20 yards from the stage for the Who and be able to talk at normal volume to your neighbour seems unthinkable) and the audience pretty static.

Still, at least we got the often dropped "Sally Simpson" and a few greatest hits afterwards, but this seemed cut short. Apparently the intro to "Welcome" was played for the first time since 1969 by those in the know! But there was definitely something lacking. I'm at Birmingham in a few weeks with a different set promised - let's see how that goes!

[ Edit - I gather the Saturday TCT Who show at the RAH was a huge improvement ]

Setlist - Noel Gallagher
Everybody's on the Run
Supersonic
If I Had a Gun... 
Half the World Away 
Wonderwall 
AKA... What a Life! 
Don't Look Back in Anger 

Setlist - The Who
I Can't Explain
Substitute
+
[Tommy]
Overture 
It's a Boy 
1921 
Amazing Journey
Sparks
Eyesight to the Blind 
Christmas 
Cousin Kevin 
The Acid Queen
Do You Think It's Alright? 
Fiddle About 
Pinball Wizard
Go to the Mirror! 
There's a Doctor 
Tommy Can You Hear Me? 
Smash the Mirror 
I'm Free 
Miracle Cure 
Sensation 
Sally Simpson 
Welcome 
Tommy's Holiday Camp 
We're Not Gonna Take It 
+
Won't Get Fooled Again
Join Together
Baba O'Riley
Who Are You

An Evening of Who Music - Tuesday 11th November - Shepherd's Bush Empire

This show, in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust, featured the Who's current touring band (including Zak Starkey, Pino Palladino, Simon Townshend & Billy Nicholls) and a host of guest vocalists. Hosted by Chris Evans, the event has been described as the a stars karaoke evening, but it turned out to be more than that with some excellent vocal performances, a moving charity film and some hilarious moments from Johnny Vegas and Rich Hall adding to some fine musicianship from one of the World's top bands. Oh, and Roger Daltrey sang at the end too!

Sadly there was no Pete Townshend. "I think Pete would rather do anything rather than have his songs played back to him by others" quipped Roger at the start of the evening. there then proceed to be a number of acts who I'd heard of, but not seen. Most surprisingly good were Rizzle Kicks, who's rap inspired version of "Who Are You" worked fantastically. I bet it was the most atypical audience they'd ever played to! Rich "I'm so far out of my depth here" Hall rasped his away through You Better You Bet, claiming it has the song "that had got be barred from karaoke bards across North America". Johnny Vegas sang some of Dr Jimmy and The Real Me acapella with the crowd, saying that the Quadrophenia album "saved his life".

Ricky Wilson was good, albeit with song sheets. Sheila Ferguson forgot the words to Acid Queen, which didn't really matter. Liam Gallagher snarled his way through a fine My Generation in a particularly dodgy looking mac and Eddie Vedder sounded better than I'd ever heard him before.

Roger Daltrey ended a fine evening with Substitute and an appropriate Young Man Blues. A very expensive evening, but a worthwhile one in every sense.

Setlist
I Can't Explain (with Andy Burrows)
The Kids Are Alright (with The Strypes)
Getting in Tune (with Tom Odell)
Behind Blue Eyes (with Amy Macdonald)
Who Are You (with Rizzle Kicks)
You Better You Bet (with Rich Hall)
5:15 (with Ricky Wilson)
Bell Boy (with Ricky Wilson)
Love, Reign O'er Me (with Joe Elliott)
The Acid Queen (with Sheila Ferguson)
The Seeker (with Geddy Lee)
Baba O'Riley (with Leslie Mendelson)
My Generation (with Liam Gallagher)
Naked Eye (with Eddie Vedder)
Won't Get Fooled Again (with Eddie Vedder)
See Me, Feel Me (with Eddie Vedder + ensemble)
+
Substitute (with Roger Daltrey)
Young Man Blues (with Roger Daltrey)

https://www.teenagecancertrust.org/

Roger Daltrey - Wednesday 28th March - Royal Albert Hall



"Who Are You"? Royal Albert Hall - view from the Gods


Our annual pilgrimage to the Royal Albert Hall in support of the Teenage Cancer Trust Charity. Their excellent work is supported by a series of gigs each year arranged by Roger Daltrey. Much as we'd liked to have gone to see Paul McCartney a few days later, the prices were a bit out of reach, so instead we went for the opening night to see Roger himself, albeit from slightly long range in the circle! there had been much press debate leading up to the show around debenture holders flogging their seats for huge profits and although there were some restricted view seats left empty, it was a pretty good turnout for the Who frontman and "friends".


Thumbnail of Kelly Jones and Ron Wood from
http://life.royalalberthall.com/2012/03/roger-daltrey-and-friends-kick-of-the-2012-teenage-cancer-trust-concerts/

 A 2 song acoustic set from Mr Daltrey started proceedings (pretty average in my opinion), including "Freedom" before the first of the "special" guests appeared - Paul Freeman who did 1 song. A brief (early!) interlude was followed by Kelly Jones from the Stereophonics, who I really enjoyed. One highlight was Ron Wood joining him for an excellent Faces "Ooh La La" - outrageously predicted by me at the start of the evening!

Another break and then it was time for Paul Weller. By many accounts, his live performances can be a bit hit or miss, depending on what songs he chooses to play. Here, I thought the mix of well known and new was about right and his brief acoustic set was enjoyable.

Another break and it was time for the main attraction - Roger Daltrey's electric set. Without Simon Townshend on guitar for a change and with no sign of Pete either, he ripped through a range of Who classics interrupted only by more guests. First up was Scottish songstress Amy MacDonald who did the 2 of the 3 songs of hers I have (!) and a popular cover of Springsteen's "Born To Run". I was impressed. She was quickly followed by Steve Winwood, who's "Higher Ground" has never struck me as a classic song. I was clearly in the minority on that one as most of the crowd got to their feet for an extended version. I much preferred the next song, the Spencer Davis classic "Gimme Some Lovin'" and by then the party was in full swing. Ron Wood and Kelly Jones returned later for a slight chaotic "Baba O'Riley" after a slightly self indulgent "Young Man Blues", but there was little to complain about. Roger's traditional solo show closers bought the evening to an end. A good evening for an excellent cause.

Setlist (Daltrey Electric)
Who Are You
The Kids Are Alright
Behind Blue Eyes
Mr Rock and Roll - Amy MacDonald
This Is The Life - Amy MacDonald
Born To Run - Amy MacDonald
Higher Love - Steve Winwood
Gimme Some Lovin' - Steve Winwood
Pinball Wizard
I Can See For Miles
Won't Get Fooled Again
Young Man Blues
Baba O Riley
+
Without Your Love
Blue, Red and Grey

Tommy Vance Tribute - Royal Albert Hall - Friday 31st March

OK Let's Rock! A tribute to Tommy Vance, DJ most famed for his legendary "Friday Rock Show" on Radio 2, in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust. Featuring the might of Judas Priest, The Scorpions, Ian Gillan & Friends and Boned, you would have thought that this would have been an instant sell-out. It wasn't! I suspect the £50+ price tag was a problem, and the advertising beforehand maybe wasn't the best, but it was nowhere near full. People in the choir seats were moved to better front-of house seats for "production reasons" (ie "we need to fill them up!") and the circle looked sparse. Anyway, this didn't bother us and we were lucky to have an excellent 5th Row view. 

We decided against getting there for "Boned" (we checked out the "Gloucester" pub instead - not bad), so can't comment on them. We also went to the Queens Arms and DID see the legendary "three legged dog" (check out http://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/s/65/6520/Queens_Arms/South_Kensington) to see what I'm on about!)

Mr Gillan & Friends were next and we were in plenty of time to see them. The band featured Harry James from Thunder and Dean Howard. Now I'm assuming he is the guy who used to be in T'Pau, but he looked very different, so if someone could confirm that, I'd be grateful. They played a selection of material, some of it OK, but at this sort of event you really don't want to be hearing the words "... and here's another one from my new album...". ZZzzzz. Still, "Black Night" finished things off and finally got the audience up and running. 

 Next up were The Scorpions, introduced by Bruce Dickinson. I saw them at Hammersmith last year and thought they were pretty good - here they were excellent! Lots to please the crowd and I managed to snaffle a drumstick (thanks Klaus!) and a plectrum (thanks Rudolph!). Richard even nabbed the setlist afterwards which showed that they played the following:- 

1. COMING HOME 

2. BAD BOYS RUNNING WILD 

3. THE ZOO 

4. LOVEDRIVE 

5. WIND OF CHANGE 

6. TEASE ME PLEASE ME 

7. BLACKOUT 

8. BIG CITY NIGHTS 

9. ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE 

After that excitement, Richard and I went off for a bit of "celeb" spotting around the venue (did I ever tell you about the time I met Archbishop Desmond Tutu here? No? Some other time then...), but with no joy. Dave, in the meantime, was chatting with his mate, photographer Ross Halfin (check out his excellent site and diary... http://www.rosshalfin.co.uk ). Ross is a fan of JP and the Scorpions and was working for the night - there are some comment on his diary. 

Back just in time for Judas Priest. After a brief speech from promoter Harvey Goldsmith and a touching film about the work of the charity, they were introduced by Roger Daltrey "You all know what's coming next", and the band started. Rob Halford appeared 3/4 of the way through the first song and seemed on good form. "It's Friday night at the Royal Albert Hall and the the Priest is BACK!" he roared to much approval. A solid set (motorbike included!), running well over the allotted 45 mins meant the big get-together of all the bands for the final number, Take On The World, finished around 11.30. 

Judas Priest Setlist

Electric Eye

Metal Gods

Heading Out to the Highway

Judas Rising

The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)

Diamonds & Rust

Turbo Lover

Breaking the Law

Hell Bent for Leather

Living After Midnight

Take On the World

Dave scuttled off for his last train, complete with a set of back-stage passes in his pocket. Oi !!! Our night was not quite over though. Outside the venue it was raining heavily, so we jumped on a bus to Kensington High Street, A quick beer there and off to the tube for the 12.30 train... errr what train? OK then, the last train to Wimbledon, the 12.50... errr right! Finally turns up at 01.35! Home via nightbus about 02.45 - lovely! Texted Dave whilst we were on platform waiting for tube and he was already home (with the passes!).

Anyway, a good but expensive and tiring night out. Check out the charity website here:- https://www.teenagecancertrust.org/main/