At 65 years of age Roger Daltrey has embarked on what he’s dubbed the “Use It or Lose It” tour. The vocal chords are an instrument that must to be used or they turn to “jelly” he explained to the Nokia audience at the start of the night on November 20, 2009. Therefore he set out on a group of solo shows to keep his chops in good shape. As lead singer of The Who, Daltrey is an iconic figure, along with Zeppelin’s Robert Plant the epitome of “golden god” 1970’s classic rock star, frozen in time in some of pop media’s most memorable images. At “retirement age” the singer shows no sign of handing off the rock god mantel. He’s still open shirt buff and scrappy on stage; not afraid to admonish the audience about their smoking habits (Mr. D. has unfortunately developed a nasty allergy to the weedy stuff) and willing to challenge the oft too chatty crowd for their attention.
The show was presented in a format not unlike the MTV Storytellers programs. Roger embellished most songs with anecdotes & reminiscences not commonly heard in “Whodom”. We can assume that he has recently done some memory jogging for his upcoming autobiography and this was the oral & aural equivalent of his memoir. The stories were a treat for Who fans. Daltrey mused about his love of Johnny Cash being cultivated during his machine shop working days, his pet dog dying on the day he was to record the vocals for “Behind Blue Eyes”, the IRA bomb threat that accompanied his appearance with The Chieftains in Dublin, and waxed perplexed about the popularity of fan favorite “Naked Eye”, which he claimed to not remember recording.
Though pointedly prefacing this outing as “not a Who show” he did not shy away from presenting plenty of Pete Townshend penned songs, often focusing on more obscure material or rearrangements of familiar classic rock radio staples. A stripped out version of “Who Are You”, minus the synth track, opened the set and a reworked “Behind Blue Eyes” accentuated its gorgeous harmonies. For this New York City show Roger bowed to his band’s request and sang Quadrophenia’s vocal storm “The Real Me” (supplanting McVicar’s “Free Me”) much to the audience’s pleasure.
Getting a chance to play some personal favorites Daltrey chose two tunes from a late 1990’s multi-artist concept album called “Largo”. “Freedom Ride” and “Hand a Stone” (originally sung by Taj Mahal and Levon Helm, respectively) both worked nicely in the singer’s vocal range and he seemed pleased to wrap his voice around songs outside of the standard Who repertoire. An additional surprise cover tune was CCR’s “Born on the Bayou” with Daltrey identifying it as the only song he remembers hearing at The Woodstock Music & Arts Festival in 1969. The band tore through a fun impromptu jammy version. Working the lower end of his range - his Howling Wolf sweet spot - much as he did in the early days of The Who/High Numbers (e.g. “Bald Headed Woman”) he led the band through the stop time stomper “I’m A Man” which morphed into the walking blues style version of “My Generation”.
The band, which included current Who member Simon Townshend was top notch. They knew their stuff well, especially in consideration of their limited pre-tour rehearsal time, and often presented more note accurate versions of the classics than The Who themselves. Simon channeled his older brother on a spectacular version of “Going Mobile”, making it one of the highlights of the evening. The ubiquitous “Baba O’Riley” was handled expertly by drummer Scott Devours who locked onto the often elusive backing track and powered the band through this crowd pleaser.
For a “solo” tour it was most surprising to find songs from Daltrey’s actual solo catalog mostly missing. Though he aired the poppy “Days of Light” and politically spun “Walk on Water” (keeping Billy Nichols’ “Without Your Love” for his encore), most disappointingly absent were “It’s A Hard Life”, “Under A Raging Moon”, “After the Fire”, “Avenging Annie”, “One Man Band” and any number of other tiny gems that have studded his solo albums. Hopefully there will be more solo outings from Mr. Daltrey affording him the ability to perform some of these tunes and expand his audience beyond the AAD “classic rock” crowd. The ones who only seem to know “Baba O’Riley” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” A lovely glimmer of what could be was seen at the end of the show as Daltrey donned a tiny ukulele (something that he said Pete refuses to do on stage) to sing “Blue, Red and Grey” from The Who By Numbers album with the audience softly singing along with this poignant tune. Great stuff.
Opening act, Paper Zoo, though treated rudely by some of the audience, were quite enjoyable and performed a solid set of sixties-centric original tunes. Their music is specifically reminiscent of the protean time when psychedelia was morphing into progressive rock. Fitting in with neo-retro groups like Wolfmother and Secret Machines, and seemingly sharing their need to play period equipment (Orange amps on stage) the band will remind casual listeners of early Pink Floyd, but the deeper touchstones seem to be The Move, maybe even Atomic Rooster. “Laughing at Legba” has become a favorite of mine for its distorted opening vocals, loopy chorus and tinge of Tull. Definitely worth a listen.
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