Thursday, June 28, 2007

The Who At Wembley - an interesting day

I was there at the Valley in The 70's, for one of the greatest of The Who's live performances and yesterday 5 years to the day that John Entwhistle died I was at Wembley to see the end of their UK tour. It was the 4th time that I had seen The Who but the first since Keith Moon had died - yes I am that old.

It was an eventful day. since I lost my job in March, I have gone a bit "doo lally", I went to Sainsbury and got £50 cash back, except three hours later I realised that i had not picked it up. I called up Sainsbury and they could not let me know till today.

Things could not get worse.

I had looked forward to tonight for months, recently The Who had become popular to the younger generation and much to my daughters chagrin she realised that we were both fans. This was an evening for the two of us to enjoy a common like together. So 50 year old and 16 year old left Forest Hill at 17.40 for Wembley, with eager anticipation, although not too keen on the heavy rain.

We arrived and saw the new Wembley Stadium, I am a big fan of the Twin Towers and was deeply dissapointed when they were trashed, however the new stadium does look magnificent. However, £15 for parking, I mean £15 quid, bloody hell .. lets fleece the visitors.

Any way, no choice so we parked up and went to the Arena. They scan the tickets on entry, guess what, they were rejected. Did I say I am going doo lally? The reason .. they were for Tuesday!!!!!!!!!! The ticket checker told me to go to the box office and see if they could do anything for me .. I thought to myself, given that I have no income I can't afford to buy more tickets.

I went to the ticket office and explained I had screwed up and had been told to go to the ticket office. The woman told me to talk to the manageress. My daughter was a bit amused that I was arguing against them helping me as it was my fault.

The Manageress took my tickets checked that I had bought them and gave me two tickets that were better than the ones I had bought!!! I wanted to have her babies!!!!!!!!
The performance was brilliant, the warm up group was the Charlatans, who were good, then came The Who, yes they may have got fewer, just the two and older, but they still exuded energy and vitality that belied their age. It was a brilliant performance. Pete Townsend continues to twirl his arm as he played, suggested f***ing Shirley Bassey, Roger Daltrey's vocal range may be more limtiede but he continues to belt out the numbers. Zak Starkey has drumming skills that put his father in the shade and must have Keith Moon looking down on him with pride.
Father and daughter enjoyed the evening which ended with chicken and chips from Roosters. What a great evening that could have been destroyed by a doo lally father!!!
And more good news Sainsbury have my £50