{"id":2443153,"date":"2019-04-18T12:41:26","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T18:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=824174"},"modified":"2019-04-18T12:41:26","modified_gmt":"2019-04-18T18:41:26","slug":"flashback-the-who-stage-a-rocky-reunion-at-live-aid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/music-news\/flashback-the-who-stage-a-rocky-reunion-at-live-aid\/","title":{"rendered":"Flashback: The Who Stage a Rocky Reunion at Live Aid"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In less than a month, the Who<\/a> will kick off their Moving On! tour at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where they will be joined every night by a local symphony orchestra. This may come as a surprise to some since they said that their 2014 Who Hits 50 tour was the \u201cbeginning of the long goodbye,\u201d but they never said exactly how long that long goodbye would be. And besides, why shouldn\u2019t Pete Townshend<\/a> and Roger Daltrey<\/a> keep touring until it\u2019s no longer physically possible?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re old men now,\u201d Daltrey told Rolling Stone<\/em><\/a> earlier this year. \u201cWe\u2019ve lost the looks. We\u2019ve lost the glamour. What we\u2019re left with is the music and we\u2019re going to present it in a way which is as fresh and powerful as ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Who virtually invented the farewell tour back in 1982 when they went out in support of It\u2019s Hard<\/em> and said it was the last hurrah, but just three years later they agreed to reunite at Live Aid along with Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, CSNY and Black Sabbath. Initially, Pete Townshend was very reluctant to play the event. In his memoir Who I Am<\/em>, Pete Townshend remembers the reaction of Live Aid Bob Geldof organizer when he learned about his ambivalence. \u201cIf the Who appear we know we will get an additional million pounds of revenue,’\u201d Townshend recalls him saying. \u201c\u2018Every pound we make will save a life. Do the fucking math. And do the fucking show.’\u201d<\/p>\n

He agreed to do the show, but the band didn\u2019t spend much time rehearsing and were woefully under-prepared when they took the stage at Wembley Stadium right after David Bowie in a prime-time slot. (Queen finished up their historic set just an hour earlier.) Making matters worse, the satellite feed crapped out right when they began their set with \u201cMy Generation\u201d and wouldn\u2019t return until the end of their second song, \u201cPinball Wizard.\u201d If that wasn\u2019t bad enough, John Entwistle\u2019s bass was on the fritz during the set and kept cutting out.<\/p>\n

They wrapped up with \u201cWon\u2019t Get Fooled Again,\u201d which you can watch right here. It was the best moment of their brief set, but they still lost their way during the instrumental breakdown and never quite recovered. \u201cThe Who were out of practice,\u201d Townshend wrote in his book, \u201cand should probably have left it to Queen and George Michael, who stole the show.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three years later, they reunited again at the Royal Albert Hall for the British Photographic Industry Awards and the next year they went on an extensive stadium tour. Their only real activity in the Nineties was a Quadrophenia<\/em> tour in 1996\u201397, but in 2000 they returned the road and have been there ever since, even though Entwistle died days before their 2002 tour began. It\u2019s quite possible their upcoming symphonic tour will indeed be the last one, but in all likelihood they\u2019ll do at least one more. If they can survive that Live Aid set, they can survive most anything.<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In less than a month, the Who will kick off their Moving On! tour at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where they will be joined every night by a local symphony orchestra. This may come as a surprise to some since they said that their 2014 Who Hits 50 tour was the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2443153","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 13:10:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2443153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443153\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2443153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2443153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2443153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}