Meeting Roger Daltrey is a bit like being summoned by a cockney crime lord.
He’s friendly yet terrifying; a hard man inclined to slip into wells of compassion. When he’s really tickled by something, he clings to the arms of his chair and cackles with an intense engagement, looking right into you as his body rattles up and down with mirth. He pauses for a moment before it happens, and you sense that the laugh is coming, then he goes very quiet once it’s all over.
"To me it's every bit as relevant. - Roger says- The more I've lived with it, the more I've come to realise it’s about the human condition. And worshipping false heroes.
And today with social media and that, it seems to be more prevalent than ever with the worshipping of false heroes. Tommy would be one of the Kardashians now. Tammy! [Laughs] Why I'm pleased with this is because the audience went absolutely bananas when they heard it and I thought this is still touching people. Fourteen thousand people turned up to see me on my own! I thought it was crazy, but there's something within that piece that resonates with people and moves them."
"Those characters in Tommy are just metaphors for different parts of our society that we live in. And I don't care who you are, you can be the hardest bastard on the planet, but one day in your life you will sit there saying, 'see me, feel me, touch me, heal me' feeling sorry for yourself. There's a vulnerability that that music and those words create. "
"From Tommy onwards, I've always heard Pete's writing going more towards the classical form. So, in my head, it's always been like this. I'm really enjoying these shows. It's wonderful to hear these musicians who work so hard to get their positions in these orchestras, and they really get off on playing fresh music.
I watch them in rehearsals, and they're quite quizzical about what these charts [arranged by David Campbell, father of Beck] are going to be, and by the end of the rehearsals they're all smiling, and by the middle of the show they're just beaming, they're absolutely having the time of their lives. And they can really rock, some of these orchestras, they can really rock."
Related: Is it worth spending € 39.99 on 'Tommy Half-Speed Master' vinyl LP?
Some recordings from the 70's, like Stone's Exile On Main Street and the Who's Quadrophenia itself were not up to par with the musical product.
This black vinyl version is engineered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios using a half-speed mastering technique which produces a superior vinyl cut. cost only €39.99
