Just Because We Get Around

September 23, 2019

The Who 

Just Because We Get Around

Way back in September, 1982, during my freshman year at Purdue, I went to see the Who perform what was billed as their “Farewell tour” at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis. It was my first time seeing the band and the last time with their original members. They even released a live album “Who’s Last” that was recorded during the course of their final tour. As with many bands though, their farewell tour was the last one until the next one- which followed a short six years later in 1989.

 

Flash forward close to forty years later and the Who, with original members Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey is still touring pretty regularly and this week brought their current “Moving On” tour to the BB& T Center in Sunrise, the home of the Florida Panthers. Kathy and I made our third drive up to the Miami area in as many weeks to see live music, this time to catch the Who in concert.

 

The Who will also be releasing their first album of new songs in thirteen years later this year. On stage, the line-up was rounded out by familiar Who players featuring guitarist/backup singer Simon Townshend, keyboardist Loren Gold, bassist Jon Button and drummer (and son of Ringo Starr) Zak Starkey, and complemented by some of the best orchestra musicians from across the US and Canada as the show also featured a full orchestra on stage to compliment and add to the musical spectacle.

Zak Starkey

 

I have seen the Who about 4 or 5 times over the past 40 years, most recently at The Desert Trip in 2016 where they played with Roger Waters, Neil Young, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney. At that time, I thought they were the weakest of the six acts, which still isn’t all that bad considering the company they were playing with, but I wanted to check them out once again as a headlining act. They had a hard rock band called Reignwolf open the show before they came out and played a 22 song set that was just over two hours.

It was a solid show, though once again I think we both left feeling that it was missing a certain energy or enthusiasm that could possibly be a reflection of their advancing years, or more likely that we just weren’t that in to it. The orchestra did not add as much oomph as one might have thought and while the band sounded pretty good, there was just a little something missing. It could have been the set list which focused heavily on songs from “Tommy” and “Quadraphenia” and left out some of their most recognizable songs, including “My Generation”.

 

Being up in the Miami area, we decided to spend the day after the show doing a little shopping at IKEA before heading over to the Wynwood Arts District to attend an annual event hosted by the Concrete Beach Brewing Company, Blocktoberfest. The Octoberfest themed block party was held at their brewery in the heart of the artsy Wynwood District.

 

This was the fifth annual event that featured a selection of local breweries offering up tastings of some of their new and rare craft brews. It was supposed to be a real block party, but was all moved into the interior of the brewery by potential thunderstorms, which did in fact hit the area after we had headed back to Key West.

 

I love the Wynwood area because of the incredible and abundant graffiti artwork that adorns almost every inch of possible wall space, and sidewalk. Some of the best graffiti artists on the planet frequent the area and there is an ever changing, always intriguing selection of amazing artwork. We barely scratched the surface, basically only checking out what was in the immediate vicinity of the brewery, but I need to get back to the neighborhood soon to get a more involved perspective. Perhaps when we are up for the Miami Book Fair. 

Once back in Key West, we were invited to attend a birthday brunch for our friend Caitlin who is celebrating her 22^nd birthday. Her family and a few close friends gathered at Azur for a wonderful brunch and a nice long afternoon of just hanging out and celebrating with some wonderful people. Caitlin was home for the weekend from attending college at the University of South Florida. As a birthday present, her family gave her a two night stay at the Artist House guest house, which is supposedly haunted by the ghost of Robert the Doll, who provided the inspiration for the Chuckie movies about the murderous doll.

Jean, Greta and Caitlin

Michael

Greta and Caitlin

By coincidence the owners of the Artist House just happened to be sitting at the next table over from us and stopped over to say hello and to wish Caitlin good luck in surviving her stay at the supposedly very haunted guest house.