It has taken them 60 years and, within the Olympus of British Rock, they are literally the last to arrive, but The Who will finally visit Barcelona, which will be the only Spanish stop on their world tour. A curse, that of the band's failed passage through the city, which fans celebrate is finally broken, as the Sheperd's Bush natives were close to performing here in 2006, but ended up doing so in Zaragoza.
It will be on June 14, and the last two survivors of the original lineup, singer Roger Daltrey and guitarist and composer, Pete Townshend, will perform their songbook on the stage of the Palau Sant Jordi, backed by a band---accompanied by Zak Starkey, Ringo Starr's son--- and by the Orquestra Simfònica del Vallès.
The repertoire is expected to cover songs from their beginnings, when that quartet of scowling London mods combined their passion for amphetamine R&B and Pop Art, with teenage anthems like My generation, Can't explain or the (slightly later) Magic bus, to songs from their last album, Who, from 2019. In between, pieces from their conceptual works, Tommy and Quadrophenia, or great classics of that rock that, in the 70s, propelled them to the top: Won't get fooled again, Who are you or Long live rock.
And, despite the ages of Daltrey and Townshend, already close to eighty, everything seems to indicate that none of the ingredients that, based on octane, lyrics and genius, have shaped the imaginary of that band that so many loved who were not (we were, we are, we always will be) neither Stones nor Beatles, will be missing.
A glorious clash of egos
As with the Stones or the Beatles, each of The Who had a very marked personality and, despite the friction and fights that this could cause them, it was that unique sum of extraordinary characters that gave life to an unrepeatable band.
Pete Townshend was (is) the one with the songs. The creator. The genius, excessive, tormented, explorer, egocentric, restless. The big-nosed one from whom the bulk of the thousands of songs that make up the band's repertoire come.
Roger Daltrey is the star. The handsome and sharp guy. Precise, methodical and with the gifts to enchant millions of fans from a stage. The formal and responsible guy who wants things clear and chocolate thick and who, for that reason, clashed so much with Townshend in his day.
The bassist, John Entwistle, was the jinx, the strange guy who never smiled and who stood totally still on stage. He wrote songs about monstrous spiders, imaginary friends or late victories and ended up dying in 2002 in a way no one would have ever imagined: in a Las Vegas hotel room, surrounded by expensive escorts, aged whiskey and pure cocaine.
Keith Moon was the drummer and the craziest uncle on the planet. Always drunk, high and a fan of practical jokes and excess without compromise. A consummate expert in destroying hotel suites, intimate with Oliver Reed and the kind of guy any teenager would have wanted to go partying with. Pyrotechnic and self-combustible, he died in 1978 after taking 32 pills of Clomethiazole, a sedative that had been prescribed to him to combat his alcoholism. He was just over thirty years old.
And, in the midst of that glorious clash of personalities: songs and albums that have written some of the most notable pages of 20th Century popular music. Songs danced to, lived, brought to the cinema, turned into books. Songs from which cults and loves have been born that last a lifetime or several. The Who have been and are all that.
A legacy, a history of nearly six decades that, finally, will make a stop in a Ciudad Condal that awaits them with open arms and ears.
In 1965, they sang that The kids are alright. And neither they nor many of their fans are (we are) precisely kids anymore. But how good it feels to know that they are still there, fighting and breaking out on stage.