Super Bowl Sunday - The Who!

Being a native Hoosier and living all but nine months of my life in the greater Indianapolis are, one would think that I'd be writing all about the Colts and today's Super Bowl.

But rather than that I thought that I'd write a little about the halftime entertainment. Pete and Roger have their hands full of playing up to last years twelve minutes of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's powerhouse. I think they can handle it.

The Who are iconic. Nobody has done more to stretch the art form of Rock and Roll than has Pete Townshend. Roger Daltrey's vocal prowess is beyond compare. Entwistle's playing has inspired generations of bassists. Keith Moon's controlled wild abandon gave rock and roll drumming a dimension bigger than just holding down the beat. Many claim The Who cannot be The Who when half of the original members are gone. I say balderdash. Pete and Roger have carried on and made great music, much of it underrated by the "critics."

The story goes that Pete wasn't too keen on reforming The Who after they "retired" back many years ago. He had plenty of dough coming in from song writing royalties but Roger and John were hurting financially. And, Pete had a small string of excellent solo albums under his belt. Finally Pete agreed to give the band a go and they've been going at it, albeit off and on since. This is just a guess, but I believe that after Pete heard and felt the power of The Who and their music he realized the importance of what they had created. And, pre-recession, the big money major acts were bringing in wasn't bad either.

This evening, for twelve minutes, on arguably the world's biggest stage, Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey will defy their age and deliver the message and promise of Rock and Roll.

From a Billboard article, here is Pete Townshend on the Super Bowl setlist:

"We're kinda doing a mashup of stuff," the guitarist tells Billboard. "A bit of 'Baba O'Riley,' a bit of 'Pinball Wizard,' a bit of the close of 'Tommy,' a bit of 'Who Are You,' and a bit of 'Won't Get Fooled Again.' It works -- it's quite a saga. A lot of the stuff that we do has that kind of celebratory vibe about it -- we've always tried to make music that allows the audience to go a bit wild if they want to. Hopefully it will hit the spot."