The New York Times cuts right to the heart of the matter with an appropriate football metaphor about The Who. Joe Lapointe writes of the band’s legendary antics and explosively loud stage presence in earlier days that “if rock music had penalty flags, the Who in its earlier years often would have been charged with excessive celebration and dangerous play.”
Once listed by The Guinness Book of Records for giving the loudest rock concert, the band was known for wreaking havoc on stage and in hotel room alike.
On Sunday, The Who takes to one of the shortest but most visible live show venues as the featured act for halftime of the Super Bowl. Their set is anticipated to be a rollicking performance, but restrained in comparison both to their output as young men as well as to more recent Super Bowl halftime fare where something seemed to have gone awry with certain details of costume design.
Like the rest of their generation, they are now older and wiser. Sadly, but certainly in the spirit of the show must go on, The Who performs without two of the long-running band’s founding members: drummer Ketih Moon died in 1978, and bass player John Entwistle in 2002. But recent additions to the band’s line up come with verified rock star bona fides: drummer Zack Starkey is the son of The Beatles’ Ringo Starr, rhythm guitarist Simon Townsend is founding Who member Pete’s younger brother, and the resume of bass player Pino Paladino is a veritable Who’s Who of popular music legends, having played and recorded with Tears for Fears, John Mayer, Eric Clapton, Jools Holland, Roy Hargrove, Seal, among dozens of others.
Timed to coincide with the band’s halftime appearance is the premiere of a revisited version of their signature 1960′s hit song “My Generation.” The song, reworked with the help of producer and recording artist will.i.am and guitarist Slash, will launch during an ad for FLO TV scheduled to appear during the game’s second quarter. According to the band’s website, The Who and will.i.am collaboratively decided to dedicate all proceeds from sales of the new record to Oxfam for relief efforts in Haiti.
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Photo courtesy of Annie Mole via Wikimedia Commons
