When The Who’s Roger Daltrey snarled during an interview last year his band never wrote music for girls but only for fighting it was proof for modern music lovers there are sacred matters in life that will never change.
Daltrey’s legendary band, now in its 56th year of creating magical rock 'n' roll, performing, shocking the public and not really caring what people think, are releasing their new album WHO tomorrow. And they are still fighting, amongst themselves, and with critics and whoever stands in their way.
So too are millions of diehard fans across the globe. They too have a fighting spirit only true Who fans can ever know.
It was on Dec. 2, 1973 when this scribbler, as a pimple-faced young teenager, went to Montreal to experience his first Who concert. I went with my friend Dave Seal, a passionate Rolling Stones fan. It was a great concert, so much so that I became a lifelong fan of the band. It also marked a long fun-loving fighting relationship with Dave as we endlessly argued over which band was better; who was the most charismatic front man – Daltrey or Mick Jagger, who was the more skilled guitarist -- Pete Townshend or Keith Richards.
As I count down the days before the release of The Who’s new album, I have longed for my past loving rock music scraps with Dave. Sadly, he passed away from cancer eight years ago. I miss everything about him dearly, especially his fighting spirit when it came to the glory of rock 'n' roll, and how it shaped our generation.
Last weekend when I was on social media a local friend responded to my post about the upcoming Who album. It was a friendly comment until he said, “Great that there can still be new music from an 'old' band, especially 'your' band. They're no Zeppelin, of course, but they're pretty good.”
In true Who spirit I seized the moment. The fight was on. For the next hour we traded passionate posts about "who was better." This was the old fighting spirit I had so long missed. And to make it even better, another joined in - a Beatles fan, and then another, who is a diehard Cream devotee; all staking their claim to which band is best.
Yes, those glorious days of my youth were back, the fighting spirit of The Who.
I will be in Red Deer this weekend to get my CD of the new Who album, and vinyl ones for my daughter and grandson.
I will think of Dave of course, and then point the cover of the new Who album to the heavens and exclaim, "told you so.”
Johnnie Bachusky is the editor of the Innisfail Province.
