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Roger Daltrey, lead singer of The Who, is performing the band’s legendary 1969 rock opera Tommy in total for the first time. Incidentally, The Who never actually played the complete Tommy in concert. The show is an unforgettable concert experience for lifelong fans and newcomers alike, and it is critically-acclaimed.
Says the Palm Beach Post: “Daltrey brings devastating power of ‘Tommy’ to life in great live show…a truly amazing, mind-blowing; over-the-top performance…an audio orgasm backed by subliminal visuals”.
After concluding the Tommy section with the anthemic “We’re Not Gonna Take It” Daltrey and band rip through several Who classics, including “Pictures of Lily”, “Baba O’Reilly”, “My Generation” and “I Can See For Miles”, as well as a few covers. Daltrey is backed by a solid band: Simon Townshend, younger brother of The Who’s guitarist Pete Townshend on guitar and vocals, Frank Simes (guitar and also music director/arranger), Scott Deavours (drums), Jon Button (bass) and Loren Gold (keyboards).
Indeed, Tommy is not only one of the most acclaimed and defining works of the rock era, it is an enduring work that resonates on radio to this day where it has found multi-generational appeal.
Roger Daltrey told the Boston Globe’s Sarah Rodman, “I can appreciate it much more. I’ve got no battle to win, so I can enjoy it. It always felt like there was a battle to be won when we used to play it in the early days. And that was great because we had the strength and the youth and the testosterone to win it every night. But now I can relax into it, and the music’s better for it in a way. It’s different, but it’s better.
“I’ve never felt the narrative of Tommy has ever been about one person. For me, Tommy has always been about all of us: you, me, and everyone else in the audience. It’s the spiritual journey that we all go through in life. The characters in it – Uncle Ernie and Cousin Kevin and the Acid Queen – they’re all part of the human condition, things that are thrown at us. The way I feel about it is, I just hope that whatever light that you find at the end of your life is a bright one (9/11/11)”.
Andy Greene has recently praised Daltrey’s boldness – his attempt to represent the “brilliance of the original LP”, as opposed to the films, musicals, and operas that were influenced by Tommy (Rolling Stone 10/13/11).
The remaining tour dates are as follows:
10/12 Grand Prairie, TX Verizon Theatre
10/14 Kansas City, MO The Midland by AMC
10/16 Broomfield, CO 1STBANK Center
10/19 Los Angeles, CA NOKIA Theatre
10/21 San Jose, CA San Jose Civic
10/22 Las Vegas, NV The Joint
10/24 Portland, OR Rose Quarter-Theater of the Clouds
10/25 Seattle, WA KeyArena at Seattle Center
10/27 Vancouver, BC Rogers Arena
10/29 Edmonton, AB Rexall Place
10/30 Calgary, AB Scotiabank Saddledome
11/1 Saskatoon, SK Credit Union Centre
11/2 Winnipeg, MB MTS Centre
