Word: townshend
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Each of Quadrophenia's successes points back to the real people and locations under discussion. Its scope is limited, then; it has little to say thematically. Only one of the four themes (Peter Townshend's, in fact) is explicitly moral, and the weakest, lyrically and musically, ending the opera with a piece of simplistic fluff called "Love, Reign O'er Me." In the main though, aside from Quadrophenia's socio-historical-contextual significance (which is nothing to dismiss), whatever statement it makes is one of "stance...
...general onstage uglinesses have done more for, say, Alice Cooper's stage show, than is generally thought. The vital difference, of course, is that The Who have something to translate (this is not l'art pour l'art), namely lower class punk arrogance and good old teenage hostility. Townshend has expended the bulk of his creative energy on his working class contemporaries, and succeeded primarily at proving that he's a punk at heart himself. He passes that adolescent arrogance on to his band, and they hand it on to us (and do you have any idea of the power...
...lower class frustration. Which is why these songs perform so well in concert. Because their autobiographical nature, really a secondary feature of the album, becomes dominant. The two-thirds of the opera that are performed is a strong two-thirds, even though two of the four themes are eliminated. Townshend programmed some sound effects for the stage and added two small banks of PA amps to the back of the hall, a real stroke of genius, because filling Boston Garden with sound is no picnic. They filled...
...that did, it's true, tend to run together a bit. I suspect the majority of the crowd was unfamiliar with the work as a whole (requests for Tommy were shut off with a brusque, "Where've ya been?"), and that hurt the performance some. Certain things were revealed: Townshend is a conservative guitarist--underneath the windmilling is a man who plays crisp licks and lines and is a master of transitions. He alternates finger-picking, chording and single notes with intelligence and grace, particularly in "I'm One," and the opening of "5:15." He plays with power, though...
...introduction. There are four songs to warm up, Quadrophenia, then three more songs. The warm-ups are a smattering of history. And they are run off like copies--"Can't Explain," "Summertime Blues," "My Wife," and "My Generation." Their essence is a fifteen second repetition of those windmill chords Townshend has made famous. They succeed like calisthenics--Daltry twirls his mike, Townshend does his splits, Moon acts like a three year old, Entwhistle does nothing, and the audience sits on its hands...