The Who: Reactions
We got to see the No Fun League, excuse me, the National Football League give us The Who during the half time show of Sunday’s Super Bowl. If you’re over 30 and or fans of CSI, then you might have recognized some of their tunes that were played Sunday night: Pinball Wizard, Baba O’Reilly, and Who Are You.
Okay, I’m only joking a little as The Who are certainly in a class of their own and their tunes should be recognized, but lets be real here — was anyone actually interested in seeing them perform at one of the biggest sporting events of the year? I didn’t think so.
Lets get down to it. Here are some reactions found throughout the media world.
The Houston Chronicle says The Who played it too safe at halftime. Andrew Dansby says it best, “It was the musical equivalent of having your food chewed for you, with six guys doing what four used to.”
ESPN’s Lynn Hoppes describes that even Daltrey, The Who’s front man, wasn’t happy with their performance. Daltrey said it was hard to perform a medley of their songs in 12 minutes.
The Chicago Sun Times said enough in their article title for me to want to post it here: Out there in the field, fossils barely resemble the Who.
The New York Times claim that the lasers, lights and fireworks were added to make sure the “rock geezers,” didn’t come off as too old. The author claims Daltrey looked directly at Townshend as he sang, “let’s get together before we get much older.”
The Miami Herald tells us how The Who got many of the 74k people in the building up and on their feet. And then they did a Twitter search showing that we all weren’t totally into it at home.
For me, their performance was just lacking. Maybe I’d feel different if I was around in the 1960’s to see these guys in their prime, but I’m in my late 20’s (holy shit, did I just admit that?): these guys just don’t do it for me at the age they’re in. Besides that, I felt as though they were pumping in crowd noises throughout the performance.
While I didn’t think the performance was abysmal, it certainly was the worst the Super Bowl has had in some time. Daltrey’s voice is completely different now and he just can’t pull off what those songs require now. But most glaring to me was Townshend’s guitar playing. If I remember correctly, this guy is supposed to be a virtuoso isn’t he? He sounded like some five year old playing Guitar Hero on expert and getting all the missed note sounds. At least Ringo Starr’s kid was pretty good on drums.
Also, this is the first time that I can remember that no fans were brought out onto the field to get close to the stage. In fact, they just surrounded the stage with a giant ring and all the lasers and smoke prevented the cameras from even seeing the crowd. It gave the performance a very sterile vibe.
No fans were brought onto the field, but you could definitely hear them singing along from somewhere. That was pretty amazing during Teenage Wasteland. I agree though that their voices just can’t handle their own songs any more. They sure can pick still though.
The singing along sounded way too perfect and too clear to be real. Felt like I was sitting at a New Jersey Nets game again.
Fans on the field do not help me enjoy a performance.
I never go to a concert to see the other fans
The lights were amazing, the Who sounded good for a bunch of guys lucky to be alive.
Mike,
No, I don’t go to a concert for that reason either, but there’s an undeniable human element to seeing other people taking in the music, rather than just the band playing to seemingly no one.
I’m not sure why they even televise it anymore. Who really watches it? OK, so I did, but mostly just because I exerted my channel changing energy when I got up to grab another beer. It seems like it would only be entertaining for those actually at the game; but then again, they’re probably going to get another beer, too.
Hey The Who is a legendary rock band and you’ll fucking respect them for all the music they’ve created and at least it was better than shitty ass rap music, rappers don’t even make their own music and they lip sync as well, at least The Who has the balls to go out there and 1 play their own music and 2 sing their powerful lyrics without a wardrobe malfunction or any other nigger bullshit going on
The who are a legendary rock band indeed but they are old. Their performance was pathetic to say the least. But i dont blame them, i blame justin timberlake and janet jackson, after what they did years back its common sense to play it safe now. The who didnt make many people excited but they didnt offend anyone. I suppose you could say it was an average halftime show perfromance, much like the game. *yawns* looking foward for next superbowl.
I thought they had a decent preformace. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t superb either. The biggest issue I heard was the sound mixing, with the bass and Townsend’s microphone both too high. There were only a couple of times that I noticed Daltry being unable to hit his notes, but he made it up with his scream at the end of “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” Townsend rocked hard with his guitar solos throughout the full 12 minutes, he played a few licks better than the albums. Overall, I think what hurt them the most was their lack of energy, as Who concerts used to be full of jumping and Daltrey swinging his microphone, neither of which happened. Well, not so much lack of energy, as less than what they used to have.
@Tanner Libbra: I don’t think anyone, including myself, is discrediting The Who as a legendary rock band. No one is saying otherwise. However, their performance at the Super Bowl was everything but legendary — and this is what we are critiqing. Saying their Super Bowl performance was legendary, because their past work is legendary is just flat out ignorant.
The Who, today, are a fraction of what they were at their primes. This is fact, unfortunately.
Your comments regarding “nigger bullshit” is just showing your ignorance.