Catching Up With The Who

You have to understand, I am a child of the ‘70’s. You know long hair, holey jeans, American Flag shirts, the whole hippie thing. Yes, I also have to admit I am a lifelong fan of the Who. I can’t remember exactly when or why I fell in love with the Who. It could have been the psychedelic figures and colors. Or it could have been the power and the rhythm of their words. All I knew was they were a huge part of mine and my friends’ upbringing and culture.

I was really excited when I recently heard the Who were coming to a theatre near me. Now, you may not approve of this but I wanted to expose my 11 year-old daughter to this same group that had gotten me so psyched when I was such a young lad. She wanted to bring along a friend so, of course, we had to get permission from her parents. I was excited but the girls were absolutely giddy.

When we arrived I filled out the credit application to purchase popcorn and sodas (I went for the 90 day same as cash option). I can’t say I was shocked when I saw a lot of other parents with their kids. I knew this was a huge experience that many people wanted to share with the next generation. We settled into our seats and waited for the extravaganza to begin!

I have to admit the group started off kind of quiet. In fact you could barely hear them. However, the lighting and visuals were astounding from the beginning! Crazy, vivid colors jumping right out at you. Sometimes you kind of had to lean back the colors were so bright. My daughter and I laughed when we did this. It went this way for most of the show. Great visuals, but really, really weak vocals by the Who. I’m not sure this is what my daughter expected.

It was really only at the very end when the Who got what I call, “ rock star” loud. Of course it was at this point that Horton had to exhort the Who to get that loud to save their tiny little world. Yeah, “Horton Hears a Who” rocked my world when I was a kid. Oh that rock band, they were pretty cool, too.