Before they destroyed guitars and now they walk accompanied by a stately symphony orchestra, but let’s not get demagogic: The Who always knew combine anger and elegance, even venturing into an ambitious and controversial genre, rock opera, which turns out to be the core material of the tour that brought the band to the Palau Sant Jordi this Wednesday. The Who in Barcelona, yes finally liquidating one of the most strident anomalies of the stage curriculum from the city.
A debut with several decades late in which this band created in 1964with Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend at the helm (the survivors of the original quartet, which included the fallen Keith Moon and John Entwistle), was shown in its most corpulent version, quite seventies and with the thickness added by that Orquestra Simfònica del Vallès, directed by Xavier Puig, which involved the most ‘operatic’ sections. Rolling start with the sequence destined for ‘Tommy‘ (1969), the double album that told the story of the boy who was left deaf, blind and dumb by trauma (with the generational background of World War II), culminating in stringy assaults on ‘Pinball wizard’ and ‘We’re not gonna take it’ (and its ‘crescendo’ known as ‘See me, feel me’). A Sant Jordi, first place on the european tourwith some gaps in the stands, it must be said: 8,500 attendeesaccording to promoter Live Nation.
a couple of surprises
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The orchestra announcement had made a part of the fans frown, but the central block rewarded her. The group, dry stick (Zak Starkey, Ringo ‘jr’, on drums), going back to ‘The seeker’ and recovering, to the delights, a couple 60’s milestones excluded on their last American tour, ‘I can see for miles’ and ‘Substitute’, which sounded glorious. There was no place for other numbers from his first era, such as the highly symbolic ‘My generation’. But yes for two trophies from the indispensable album ‘Who’s next’ (1971): a roaring ‘Won’t get fooled again’, with introductory synth notes visibly putting the audience into a trance, and a’Behind blue eyes’ in alliance with two violinists.
It was gratifying to see how Daltrey conserves the vocal power at 79enduring the demands of a songbook that went up to more than two hours and that in the third and last block pointed towards the other rock opera, ‘Quadrophenia’ (1973), magnum opus of mod culture overlooking Brighton. And from there, to the climax with that disturbing ‘Baba O’Riley’, a reflection of the dark side of adolescence in the Woodstock era, the last Everest of a night in which The Who, although out of time, displayed indestructible-looking powers .