DATELINE: August 3, 2002

Madison Square Garden

New York City, NY

As a teenager growing up in the mid 70’s hooked on rock music, a favorite pastime of mine was to fantasize of “dream” concert co-billings.

Certainly a fantasy co-billing of mine in those days would have included Led Zeppelin paired with The Who. These 2 bands were unquestionably at the height of their musical powers in circa 1975 and certainly the performances by survivors of these 2 British Rock icons reminded the nostalgic audience of those powers.

The opening notes of the first single Darkness, Darkness from Robert Plants new album “(Dreamland”) were played before a very small audience at Madison Square Garden. There were dark, moody lights, burning incense and dry ice effects setting a tone of burnt out hippieness. Since a lot of people apparently were taking their time in getting to their seats, I was able to weasel my way down to the first level off of the floor and just to the side of stage right. I was really glad and pretty lucky because when Plant walked out on stage he was RIGHT THERE in front of me!

Not too surprisingly, you can see the wear & tear that creases ever deeper into this lemon squeezers worried-worn face. There was, happily, no evidence of wear & tear noted with the (former?) rock gods still formidable wails.

The supporting band for Plant is called Strange Sensation and they are a strong (not necessarily strange) group of young musicians. By the end of the second number of the set (Celebration Day from Zep III), we in the audience got a sense that we were in for seeing a great cover band, fronted by the lead singer of Led Zeppelin.

In addition to covering several classic Zep tunes, RP also pulled out some fine choices from his vast selection of solo material. Highlights of the solo Plant songs included Tall Cool One and a very Zeppelin-y Calling To You from the 1993 Fate Of Nations album.

The 3 guitar players (1 was on bass) made you appreciate what Jimmy Page & John Paul Jones accomplished musically with Led Zeppelin. By the time Plant came out for an encore of Whole Lotta Love, the standing room only crowd was fully in his hands as if he was the headliner. Remember, this is the opening act and almost 20,000 people were on their feet!

RP made a couple of characteristically loopy references throughout his set. During the opening of Going to California, Robert said that they were going to sit down because he heard “that sitting down was catching on”. At the beginning of Four Sticks, he said “this is Rock and Roll” and welcomed everybody to the “third night at Madison Square Garden of the Who with RP”. The guy is definitely still a flower power, hippie child after all of these years.

Before taking the stage, a short documentary about the Who shown rehearsing for this tour, was played on the big screens. There were also lots of old pictures or videos of the band & Keith Moon as well being presented on the screens. Finally the band just walked out on stage, Pete Townsend wearing big, dark sunglasses and just as Roger Daltrey was, all dressed in black.

With windmill arms flailing and microphones swinging, the band launched into early hits like Can’t Explain and Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere. It seemed that Robert Plant would be a tough act for any band to follow but clearly the Who were up for the task. They wasted no time with staking their claim at the rock & roll hall of fame by rolling out numbers like Behind Blue Eyes, Bargain, Substitute and Baba O’Riley. Every seat was taken and then some because the Garden was packed to the rafters for this Saturday night show.

Pete introduced the band pretty early into the show. Polite applause was given to the assembled band with the exception of the drummer, Zak Starkey. For those who didn’t know, the son of Ringo Starr (who looks like his dad but plays like Keith) has been a “member” of the Who for about 10 years now and got a rousing round of applause from the NY audience.

There were a few numbers such as Eminence Front or Another Tricky Day that I’d happily have seen traded in for A Quick One or Pictures of Lily. Pete did say something about a white powder problem around the time of Eminence Front but he still could have played something else (read: better like   from the bands catalogue and spared us the cocaine references.

I’ve got no complaints about the selection of songs taken from Quadrophenia. Having seen the entire opera performed a few times, 4 songs including a great version of Love Reign O’er Me seemed just about right to me.

As the show started winding its way down with great versions of The Kids Are All Right, My Generation  and Won’t Get Fooled Again, I was able to weasel back down to the first level again, this time on stage left. For these last 2 songs plus another 4 or 5 taken from Tommy, I don’t think that I was more then 50 feet away from Roger & Pete. From the neck down they still seem to be young men. Roger’s shirt was almost all the way open and besides having a waistline of no more than 30 inches, the dude still has abs of steel! As for Pete, there was little evidence of his suffering from either the double hernia or irreparable ear damage I’ve read about in the past.

MAN, for a bunch of guys not far from the traditional retirement age of 65, these fading rock gods proved to me that it isn’t better to burn out, it is better to rock hard before you

fade  away.

Just ask Keith, John & John…..