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The Who at the Hollywood Bowl

November 4, 2022

The Who played one of the final dates of their The Who Hits Back! Tour at the Hollywood Bowl in Hollywood, CA Tuesday night where they ended their last tour Moving On! in 2019. For nearly 60 years, The Who have been one of the greatest and most influential Rock bands of all time. The band was originally formed with Roger Daltrey (Lead Vocals), Pete Townshend (Guitar), John Entwistle (Bass), and Keith Moon (Drums) and the same lineup remained until Moon’s passing in 1978. For 23 years The Who only played a few one off shows and only released two albums in the 80’s. After Entwistle’s passing in 2002 Daltrey and Townshend continued on as The Who and released their first new album in 22 years in 2006.

Mike Campbell’s Dirty Knobs opened the show. Dirty Knobs joined the tour October 14th in St Louis, MO and before were playing headline shows as well as dates opening for Chris Stapleton. As Campbell said the last time he played the Hollywood Bowl was with his brother Tom Petty five years ago. These three shows were the final dates of the Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers 40th anniversary tour and just a week later Petty passed. Campbell was The Heartbreakers guitarist from the group’s formation until the very last show. The Dirty Knobs are Campbell, guitarist Jason Sinay (Neil Diamond), bassist Lance Morrison (Don Henley), and drummer Matt Laug (Alanis Morissette). The Dirty Knobs set was just seven songs including Heartbreaker’s hits “Refugee” and “Runnin’ Down a Dream.

Since 1996 Zak Starkey, son of Ringo Starr and Godson of Keith Moon has been the drummer. Pino Palladino was bassist since John Entwistle’s passing and was replaced by Jon Button in 2017 when Palladino went back to touring with John Mayer regularly. Pete Townshend’s brother Simon (guitar) has also been a touring member over 20 years, and Loren Gold has been one of the Who’s keyboardists for the last 10 years and has been performing with Chicago since last year taking over for Lou Pardini.

Since the 60’s The Who has been known for their loud and reckless performances which have included smashing guitars and exploding drums. At 78 Daltrey still swings the mic around and at 77 Townshend still pulls off his signature windmill guitar move. In the last eight years The Who has come back around with a new tour each time they hit the road including their 50th anniversary, Tommy, and most recently Moving On. Not only has The Who expanded from a four-piece band on the road to including keyboards and rhythm guitar and starting the last tour with an Orchestra! The orchestra members are local to each city however touring with The Who once again are lead violinist Katy Jacoby, principal cellist Audrey Q. Snyder, keyboardist Emily Marshall, backing vocalist Billy Nicholls who had performed with the group in 1989 and 96-97 and conductor Keith Levenson. Also double bassist Randy Landau joined in for this tour. The show is broken into three parts starting and ending with the band and the orchestra.

The Who kicked off the show with “Overture,” the opening song from Tommy and played nine more songs with the orchestra.Three years ago was the 50th Anniversary of the Tommy album. The set was almost identical from the last tour with the exception of “It’s a Boy” being performed and this time “Ball and Chain” was in the first orchestra set instead of “Imagine a Man” and “Hero Ground Zero.” The last song of this set was “Ball and Chain” from their last release Who in 2019 as Townshend said while laughing it would be the only song they would perform from that album. The orchestra departed after with just the band performing the next set which was six songs. The difference from last time is that “Substitute,” and “I Can See For Miles” were not performed but instead they did “The Seeker” and “Another Tricky Day.” Joining The Who for “Behind Blue Eyes'' was Jacoby, Snyder, and Landau.

They were accompanied by the orchestra’s lead violinist and cellist for “Behind Blues Eyes.”

The final two songs were “Love, Reign O’er Me,” and “Baba O’Riley,” which featured Jacoby on the violin solo. On “Love, Reign O’er Me,” there has been a video of various U.S. Presidents and the royal family as well as the most significant events in modern history like the Vietnam War, 9/11, various natural disasters, and was updated to present day with Covid-19 pandemic and the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.

The final shows take place in Las Vegas, NV at the Dolby Live at Park MGM November 4th and 5th.

Setlist:

With Orchestra