When history writes the final book on The Rolling Stones, it’ll smile on the band’s twilight years. The group’s improbable longevity has already become an addendum to their legacy, one last remarkable accomplishment from an act that’s already achieved so many. History will not take such a warm view, however, of the final stretch of The Who, a nearly as great band that’s been around for nearly as long. Beloved as they are, the band has little to show for the last three decades, aside from many tours and one unremarkable studio album (2006’s forgotten Endless Wire), and since the death of bassist John Entwistle in 2002, they’ve been limping along without half of their classic lineup. It doesn't help that The Who’s classics are tied to youthful rebellion in a way the Stones’ aren’t. An old Stones? We were primed for that. An old Who? It’s harder to watch.
And to be sure, when The Who took the stage at the BMO Harris Bradley Center Monday night for what’s almost certain to be their final Milwaukee show, they showed their age. Singer Roger Daltrey and guitarist Pete Townshend each moved considerably slower than the film-footage versions of themselves projected behind them throughout their two-hour set, and their voices have been significantly diminished. Each had an excuse for that: Townshend was battling a bug that rendered his singing voice as froggy as Tom Waits’, while Daltrey recently recovered from a battle with viral Meningitis that forced the band to postpone the fall leg of their tour, and underscored the impression that this is the band’s final stretch.
If the veteran rockers rarely captured the raw energy of their classic albums, they didn’t embarrass themselves, either, at least if you discount some of Townshend’s bizarre stage banter. Recounting the band’s attempts to crack the American market in the mid ’60s, he offered an off-color aside: “‘When are we going to crack America’: Sounds a bit Muslim, doesn’t it?” The perplexed crowd responded with neither laughs nor groans; perhaps they couldn’t decipher him through his accent. Later he made two comments about watching Gotham, which weren’t as offensive but were almost as inexplicable. Maybe he was just wondering if anybody else watched Gotham? Again met with silence, he offered a Jeb Bush-esque plea: “For God’s sake, say something!” The crowd cheered for that.
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Thankfully, the group mostly let the music do the talking. At worst, they sounded like a band that might play an early evening slot at the Harley-Davidson Roadhouse, a band that may do a perfectly good “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” but won’t wow anybody with their agility or conviction. This isn’t how anybody wants to remember these legends, but if touring past their suggested expiration date means that packed arenas get to hear them do “Baba O’Riley” play one last time, there are worse things.
