Roger Daltrey's Set Perfectly Covers the Singer's Entire Career

Roger Daltrey’s show at the Nokia Theatre Times Square in midtown Manhattan on Friday night, November 20th provided a musical walk through Daltrey’s life and career. Daltrey, the 65-year-old lead singer of The Who, is currently on a tour being billed as Use It Or Lose It. In his show on this tour, Daltrey tells the story of each song before he and his very talented backing band perform them. In that vein, it’s quite similar to the VH1 series Storytellers. Several of Daltrey’s tales were quite interesting, particularly when he talked about how John Fogerty singing “Born On The Bayou” with Creedence Clearwater Revival was the only thing that he remembered from Woodstock. Daltrey’s tale of leaving school at age 15 to become a sheet metal worker and how he and his co-workers in the metal shop used to sing Johnny Cash songs while working was also quite interesting.

The show kicked off with a reworked version of The Who’s signature tune, “Who Are You.” But it was the second song in the set that really got my attention. It was “Pictures of Lily,” one of The Who’s great singles from the 1960s which they had not performed live in years. It sounded fresh and new at the Nokia show. Daltrey and his crew also dusted off two other 1960s nuggets by The Who, “Tattoo” and “I Can See For Miles.” Both songs received a very enthusiastic reception from the crowd, which seemed to be made up almost entirely of hardcore fans of The Who. Recordings of the Radio London jingles from The Who’s 1967 album The Who Sell Out were used during this part of the show to great effect.

The highlight of the show for me was “Goin’ Mobile,” a track from The Who’s seminal 1971 album Who’s Next, which rarely, if ever, gets performed live by The Who. Pete Townshend sang the song on the album. At the Nokia show, the song was sung by Pete Townshend’s younger brother, Simon, who is touring with Daltrey as the rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist (and also serves as a sideman with The Who). Simon Townshend’s vocals on the song sounded very similar to his brother’s, and it made the song sound like it was being performed live by The Who in the early 1970s. With Daltrey backing Simon Townshend on harmonica, it was brilliant, and it received a huge cheer from the crowd.
Daltrey’s decision to play two songs — “Squeeze Box” and “Blue Red and Grey” — from The Who’s often-overlooked 1975 album The Who By Numbers was a wise one. Both songs were performed fantastically well. Daltrey played the ukulele and sang lead on “Blue Red and Grey,” a song that had been sung by Pete Townshend on the album. Daltrey’s version was really terrific, poignant even.

The show did have a bit of an edge to it, something that I did not expect from a 65-year-old veteran rocker like Daltrey. The poor sound on stage was infuriating Daltrey throughout the show and he made several caustic comments about it at a few points during the concert. (The sound was fine where I was standing, however.) Another thing that was upsetting Daltrey was a heckler who apparently did not want to listen to Daltrey’s stories that introduced the songs. The guy would yell something like “Just play the songs!” and Daltrey would respond by telling him to “Shut up!” or “Fuck off!” It really came to a head when Daltrey was telling his story about his days in the metal shop and how much Johnny Cash’s music meant to him at the time. The heckler again told Daltrey to sing. Daltrey exploded, telling the guy to “come up on stage and do the show if you don’t like it.” He added that most of the crowd wanted to hear the stories, which was true. He finally told the guy that he’d like to “teach you a lesson, even if I am 65 years old.” That got a laugh from the crowd and defused what had been a bit of a tense moment. And good on Daltrey for refusing to ignore that jerk’s rude comments.

Daltrey and his band played a two-hour and five-minute, 21-song set. They closed the set with “Without Your Love,” a song written by Daltrey’s friend, the singer-songwriter Billy Nicholls, from the soundtrack to Daltrey’s 1981 film McVicar. In addition to Daltrey and Simon Townshend, the backing band included Frank Simes on lead guitar and backing vocals, Loren Gold on keyboards and backing vocals, Jon Button on bass and backing vocals, and Scott Devours on drums. At one point during the show, Daltrey told the crowd that there was one song that the band really wanted to play, so they added it to the set list. It turned out to be a rip-roaring version of “The Real Me” from Quadrophenia, one of my favorite Who songs. Nice one!

There are rumors of tour by The Who in 2010. If that happens, I hope they mix it up a bit and play a more eclectic set resembling the one that Daltrey played at the Nokia show. The fans really do enjoy hearing those songs that don’t get played live very often.

The set list was as follows:
Who Are You
Pictures of Lily
Behind Blue Eyes
Tattoo
Days of Light
Freedom Ride
Gimme A Stone
Goin’ Mobile (Simon Townshend on lead vocals)
Naked Eye
I’m A Man (cover of Bo Diddley song)
My Generation Blues
I Can See For Miles
Squeeze Box
Born on the Bayou (cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival song)
Young Man Blues (cover of Mose Allison song)
The Real Me
Walk On Water
Baba O’Riley
Johnny Cash Medley
Blue Red and Grey
Without Your Love

Review by John Curley