My Who Concert
A recent "spat" with my cousin Dave reminded me of my favorite band in the whole world, and the inspiration for the title of this web site, The Who. Dave is a lucky guy because he lives near Los Angeles and he actually earns a living and so he goes to a lot of concerts. Me, not so much. I occasionally get to a club show these days. Back when I was younger, I got to see a couple of great shows at Red Rocks in Colorado, maybe the best place in the world to see a concert, but they were few and far between. But only once have I gotten to see the Who. And that's stretching the definition of "see."
1989. The Who back on tour for the first time since they disbanded in 1982 in celebration of their 25th anniversary. They were going to play in Boulder at Folsom Field during my summer vacation. I couldn't wait. I had only turned on to the Who and become a fanatic after they had disbanded, so this was literally my first chance to see them. I got my friends together and we decided to go (some of us had performed as the Who years earlier in my high school's air band contest--remember air bands?). I was the purchaser, so I got up and got in line at six in the morning to get good seats. I ended up getting a block of seats right off the stage in the first couple rows of bleachers. I was psyched.
The magic day arrived, and we drove the hour and a half to Boulder to see the show. We walked into the stadium, and that's when we noticed something was wrong. What we didn't know at the time, but found out later, is that the Who's management accidentally gave the wrong stage dimension information to the ticket agency, which back then was Denver's Fey Productions, rather than the evil Ticketmaster. As it turned out, the stage was much larger than they had advertised, and as a result, we took our seats to find a great view of . . . the speaker columns.
I'm not exaggerating. Literally, we could only see one corner of the far stage, and when the band came on (and this was when they were doing Tommy with something like a 12-member ensemble) the only person we could actually see live was the Ox, John Entwistle. Christ, I came to see Townshend, my idol. Oh sure, they had a giant TV screen on the side of the speaker columns where we could see the action, but I had already seen the Who on TV countless times. I wanted to see them in the flesh. I was pissed. And so were my friends, who had ponied up the then high-price of $25 to see the show (how did concerts become so expensive lately, so fast? That same ticket today would easily be over $100, if not $200). I bought the tickets. It was my fault, therefore, we couldn't see the band. It was a mixed night, to say the least.
The concert itself was great. Wish I could have actually seen it. The real pisser is that my near-deaf brother has actually seen the Who something like three or four times, and I was the one who introduced him to the damned band. C'est la vie, I guess.
1989. The Who back on tour for the first time since they disbanded in 1982 in celebration of their 25th anniversary. They were going to play in Boulder at Folsom Field during my summer vacation. I couldn't wait. I had only turned on to the Who and become a fanatic after they had disbanded, so this was literally my first chance to see them. I got my friends together and we decided to go (some of us had performed as the Who years earlier in my high school's air band contest--remember air bands?). I was the purchaser, so I got up and got in line at six in the morning to get good seats. I ended up getting a block of seats right off the stage in the first couple rows of bleachers. I was psyched.
The magic day arrived, and we drove the hour and a half to Boulder to see the show. We walked into the stadium, and that's when we noticed something was wrong. What we didn't know at the time, but found out later, is that the Who's management accidentally gave the wrong stage dimension information to the ticket agency, which back then was Denver's Fey Productions, rather than the evil Ticketmaster. As it turned out, the stage was much larger than they had advertised, and as a result, we took our seats to find a great view of . . . the speaker columns.
I'm not exaggerating. Literally, we could only see one corner of the far stage, and when the band came on (and this was when they were doing Tommy with something like a 12-member ensemble) the only person we could actually see live was the Ox, John Entwistle. Christ, I came to see Townshend, my idol. Oh sure, they had a giant TV screen on the side of the speaker columns where we could see the action, but I had already seen the Who on TV countless times. I wanted to see them in the flesh. I was pissed. And so were my friends, who had ponied up the then high-price of $25 to see the show (how did concerts become so expensive lately, so fast? That same ticket today would easily be over $100, if not $200). I bought the tickets. It was my fault, therefore, we couldn't see the band. It was a mixed night, to say the least.
The concert itself was great. Wish I could have actually seen it. The real pisser is that my near-deaf brother has actually seen the Who something like three or four times, and I was the one who introduced him to the damned band. C'est la vie, I guess.
posted by cc at
4:41 PM
4 Comments:
Doug here, Steve. Tell the grackle story...
The Grackle story! I haven't thought of that in a while. Good idea.
I remember the concert well. Being the first time in Boulder, who would know I would end up working the bulk of my EMS career here. I have only seen 5 concerts in my life. Being so hard of hearing it is almost not worth it for me to spend the money to go to the shows. The Who was different. I went every time I could.
For the record I went to a Trisha Yearwood concert with a high school friend at the AFA in place of her cadet beau. This was just as she was breaking out. A concert on the AFA grounds with the majority of the audience in Air Force blue was a unique experience. The other was a Def Leppard concert put on by a local radio station. My roommate in college is a rabid fan and purchased some tickets with me and mine to see them. The radio station had some weird sense of humor and paired the band up with Jewel of all people, and it was definitely NOT a good match. The crowd was obviously there to see Def Leppard, need I say more.
My favorite is a close tie of the Quad tour and the last tour with the Ox. They are incredible, even to a deaf guy like me. It really helps that they have those massive speaker columns, bro. Helps with ‘feeling’ the music. BTW, I thought of you each time I went too.
Dave, you saw the Pretenders back in like, 1980, twice? That's impressive. I'm very jealous.
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