The Who Play ‘Let My Love Open The Door’ at First Post-Pandemic Gig

The Who performed their first live performance because the pandemic started at London’s Royal Albert Corridor on Friday night. It was an all-acoustic charity gig to profit the Teenage Most cancers Belief that featured a novel lineup of backing musicians, an oddball setlist, greater than few stops and begins, and minimal preparation. “We’ve solely had two hours rehearsal,” Pete Townshend informed the group early on, “so it’s going to be shit.”

Backed by guitarist Simon Townshend, percussionist Jody Linscott, bassist Phil Spalding, and backing vocalist Billy Nicholls, they opened up with “Substitute” after which tried to observe it up with “Squeeze Field.” The one drawback was some members of the band had been enjoying in the important thing of G and others had been in D. It took them three makes an attempt to determine it out, and even Townshend admitted he didn’t know the way it ought to go.

The set included 4 songs from their 2020 LP Who, together with the stay debut of “Beads on One String.” “Break Tthe Information” was performed in full twice since Daltrey was sad with the primary try. In addition they broke out their 2004 deep lower “Actual Good Wanting Boy” for the primary time since 2008, and a particularly uncommon “Eminence Entrance” with Roger Daltrey on lead vocals as a substitute of Townshend.

Maybe essentially the most shocking second got here close to the top of the set when Townshend mentioned they had been going to play one in all his solo songs. “Final week, a movie was actually massive on Netflix referred to as The Adam Venture,” he mentioned. “It acquired 60 million views in 14 days, and this music was within the film. On Shazam I believe it had 600,000 Shazams of individuals going, ‘Hey man, what’s that music? I’ll Shazam it.’ And it went to #3 on the Shazam chart.”

He was speaking about his 1980 solo hit “Let My Love Open the Door.” The music is a staple of Townshend solo gigs, but it surely hasn’t been performed at a Who live performance since their 1989 reunion tour. As you possibly can see from the above video, they acquired by means of it with none interruptions or arguments about what key to play it in. The present ended with Townshend and Daltrey enjoying “Received’t Get Fooled Once more” with none of the opposite musicians.

The Who return to the highway on April when the The Who hits Again! tour begins in Hollywood, Florida, at Laborious Rock Stay. They’ll be joined by native symphonies at each cease of the run. These shall be well-rehearsed reveals the place they’re unlikely to argue onstage over play their songs, however they in all probability received’t be fairly as enjoyable.