The Who “Moving On” Twin Cities Concert Review

I'll start off by saying that I'm not the biggest Who fan.  In fact, just last week I was telling a friend that I really wouldn't pay much to see them, if anything at all.  Then two days ago I got offered a free ticket for their Friday night Twin Cities stop of the "Moving On!" Tour.

Now, when I say I'm not the biggest Who fan, what I mostly mean is that I have pretty much zero interest in hearing the songs like "Won't get Fooled Again", and "Who are You".  Songs that I'm not saying are bad, just ones that I feel like especially with being in radio, I've heard enough for my lifetime.  Regardless, live music is always a different experience.  I am though a huge fan of the Who album, "Tommy".

Reignwolf opened and totally rocked in their Black Key's style with vocals muddled by heavy distortion.  What I didn't know until the day of this show was that this tour from The Who included some symphonic elements, strings and brass but not a full orchestra.  Since Metallica's "S&M" album, I've been a fan of that kind of rock and classical mesh.

When The Who started, for about the first 7 songs, Pete Townshend's guitar volume was at about a 3.  Pretty lame for the "windmill" guy, and while probably not his fault, someone is to blame, and the brass and strings drowned out almost anything he was playing.   At least by the time they played "Eminence Front", the guitar was screaming proper.  Townshend broke into an acoustic version of "Won't get Fooled Again", with just him singing and playing and Daltrey singing too.  That changed my mind on not wanting to hear it again, good stuff for sure.

Roger Daltrey still sounds amazing, for his age and his vocals to still be that spot on, I was impressed.  The whole group in fact musically was impressive.  The show lighting was classy yet also rock and roll creating some of those magical, "won't forget this" memories of the night.

The show didn't sell out, which surprised me as looking up ticket prices, weren't that bad.  Regardless of the attendance, the crowd that was there for them clearly enjoyed all of it.  If they keep touring, which it sounds like since they have a new album coming out soon on Interscope, I'd say they are worth catching if you haven't before, even if you are a little sick of their most popular songs like I am.