TORONTO: ‘Out here in the fields, I fight for my meals, I get my back into my living….’, sang out loud the lead vocalist Phil Naro (impersonating Roger Daltrey – frontman for The Who) backed by crack musicians of the Classic Albums Live (CAL) band as they filled the packed Massey Hall here on Nov 21 with the opening lyrics of the high energy song “Baba O’Riley” from the album ‘Who’s Next.’
Baba O’Riley is named from the combination of the song’s philosophical and musical influences from Indian guru Meher Baba and US musician Terry Riley respectively.
This was Toronto’s tribute to The Who as they kick off their 50th anniversary tour in Abu Dhabi on Nov 23.
Craig Martin, the founder and driving force behind CAL, picked one of The Who’s finest albums ‘Who’s Next’ and his band did proper justice to it by flawlessly playing the full album note for note and cut by cut.
Toronto has always had a love affair with The Who (one of the 60’s most defining rock groups incorporating both mod fashion and psychedelic mind bending influences) right from the beginning of their career through to last year when Toronto set the Guinness record for the most number of people to play pinball at one venue and so it was only fitting that Toronto do their bit to herald The Who’s upcoming historic tour.
Pinball has a special connection with The Who as it is the machine game of the 60s that was epitomized in the album ‘Tommy’, the first ever rock opera created by The Who and inspired by the time Pete Townsend (guitar extraordinaire of The Who) spent with Meher Baba. Yes, rock music’s first ever epic opera was inspired by an Indian guru!
And the magnificent concert continued with the album’s next song ‘Bargain’ and going on to all the other songs ‘Love Ain’t for keeping’, ’My Wife’, ’the Song is Over’, ‘Getting in Tune’, ‘Goin’ Mobile’, ’Behind Blue Eyes’ and ending with ‘Won’t get Fooled Again’.
But that was not all! After the break, the band came back to play some of The Who’s mightiest hits, starting with ‘The Real Me’ from the second full scale rock opera album ‘Quadrophenia’ and going on to ‘Why Should I Care?’, followed by ‘The Seeker’, ‘Squeeze Box’ and ‘You better You Bet’ .
They then played the signature song ‘Pinball Wizard’ from the album ‘Tommy’ before they slammed into the granddaddy medley of ‘My Generation’ from the loudest ever album at that time ‘Live at Leeds’. This was it! Many musicians left the stage leaving only four to represent the original line-up of The Who.
It was only Rob Philips (as Pete Townsend) on guitar, Phil Naro (as Roger Daltrey) on vocals, Mark Yannetta(as John Entwistle) on bass and Christopher Henry (as Keith Moon) on drums. And then even Phil dropped out leaving only three who manifested their prowess and mastery over the instruments they handled and rocked Massey Hall to kingdom come! The patrons were all transported to Nirvana as was clearly evidenced by the rocking standing ovation the band got as Rob Philips struck the final chords with Pete’s signature wind milling arm on the guitar! Every last person was on their feet applauding to glory!
The band ended with ‘Love, reign O’er Me’, but no, the pumped audience wouldn’t let go and clamoured for more so they came back with an encore number- the famous tune that even the newer generation knows- ‘Who are You?’ the theme song from the first CSI TV series that occurs in Las Vegas!
And with that came to an end a brilliant tribute and an ‘amazing journey’ through The Who’s incredible career.
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