The Who, Echo Arena, Liverpool. December 2014. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

It’s a wonder at times that the River Mersey doesn’t grumble at the thought of another band making its way to the Echo Arena and producing a cacophony of sound that seeps through every pore of the audience’s being. The dynamic ebb and flow, the underlying fury that drives the water down to the Liverpool-Manchester Canal and hits the rocky shoreline of Ireland with a brutal but much loved smack takes second place to the sheer resonance produced when rock legends such as Peter Gabriel, Status Quo and The Who come to Liverpool within a week of each other.

For The Who to come back to Liverpool twice with the space of roughly a year stands testament to the power of the band and the vast sway of Humanity that lined almost every available space inside the Echo Arena. This though was to be a last stand, a farewell to a group that has found itself entrenched deep within the very fibre of its fans and the music world at large. The epitome of Rock and Roll, of the hunger and desire that has shaken foundation for fifty years and for which there is an understanding between the two remaining members and crowd alike that somehow gathers strength during the performance to the point where the River Mersey considers a change in career and becoming a swimming pool further inland.

This was The Who at 50, a chance for the people of Liverpool to say goodbye to one of the all-time greats of British Rock music. The advancing years, the long illustrious past, the sadness of losing one of the most visually exciting drummers ever seen on stage and one of the coolest bass players still able to tinge an evening with a moment of grief-like sepia tone. This however was no wake, no mere farewell or sorrowful parting, this was full on party, they type in which the neighbours call the Police at four in the morning and in which the Roman Emperor Caligula himself would have complained in a manner befitting a mad tyrannical beast. The Who hit fifty with passion, verve and a fair amount of humour.

There will never be another The Who, there will never be another group that consists of all the right combustible elements, not when they started out, nor as they reach their natural explosive finale.

The crowd in the Echo Arena were treated to a night of such great music that it was as if it was everyone’s birthday, wedding anniversary and New Year’s Eve celebration all rolled together and Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey had lovingly gate-crashed the proceedings. That wall of sound bounced like a six stone man off the Liverpool legend Jan Molby and the resonance never stopped reverberating and teasing the juices of those that had came to be enthralled and entertained.

With tracks such as I Can’t Explain, Who Are You? The Kids Are Alright, the sublime Pictures Of Lily, the brutal power of the post-war anthem of My Generation, the creeping maniacal destitution of Behind Blue Eyes, You Better, You Bet, the much needed tonic of 5.15, Pinball Wizard, Baba O’ Reilly and Join Together, this was not a wake, the tearful fond farewell that some critics may have expected or preferred but the seriousness of a group who will be remembered for as long as there is a true beating heart filled with passion left on Earth

Except no substitute, for there will never be another band like The Who, there really never needs to be. A sensational night filled with poignancy and the gravitas befitting legends.

Ian D. Hall