The Who Will Rock the Super Bowl Tonight

The Who will play the Super Bowl halftime show tonight. During the show, they'll play a 15 song medley of their best-loved tunes. Yes, 15 songs in 12 minutes - so don't get too excited to hear a lot of any one song! The Who will perform bits of "Baba O'Riley," "Pinball Wizard," "Tommy," "Won't Get Fooled Again" and my favorite "Who Are You." I think "Who Are You" is easily in the Top 5 best rock songs ever recorded, but I guess that's a topic for another day.

I'm looking forward to The Who and the big game between the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints. May the best team win!

"Baba O'Riley"

"Who Are You" [from a 1981 sound check]

Queen Latifah and Carrie Underwood will also sing during pre-game ceremonies.

Comments

[Metalboy!]

Who Dat?

The Who, dat who!

They are gonna Rock Out during half time, especially if they've got Townsend's geetarz kranked to eleven with lots of sustain for those E chords.

If it ain't cranked like some geetarz on previous Superbowlz, as the Stones, ZZ and Aerosmith suffered from, well, that would kinda suck! Again.

Let's hope Townsend kranks it!

[Christian]

Metalboy, doesn't he need to crank it to even hear it nowadays ?

[Metalboy!]

Metalboy! Post Half-Time Report

Hmmm...

Not bad. But the geetarz were only turned up to 8.

Go SAINTS!

[London]

I thought they were bloody fantastic. The Saints we're bad either.

[Metalboy!]

The Saints were better than Indianapolis (good, Manning just asked for it with his subtle passive/aggressive false sense of self entitlement and unspoken "legacy building").

And The Saint's were better than The Who, who did come close to pulling it off as they did sound damned authentic. It's just as I thought it would be tho. The geetarz plain and simple did not crank out enough in the mix. "Live At Leed's", it was not.

[Shadow]

Did he actually scream that last note on won't get fooled again? the camera's panned out and i couldn't tell if they just played a recorded copy over the loudspeaker.

[bryon]

Shadow: I was wondering the same thing. They had the camera on Daltry for basically every vocal line except for the scream, so my guess is that there was, at very least, some tape supporting the scream.

Regardless, great performance! 40 years after the fact, their music stands up extremely well.

[Shadow]

honestly i thought it was the best part of the whole night, the commercials stuck and the game was so so. neither of the teams were anyone i regularly root for. I do wonder about hte screqam though because a few months back if i recall Daltry blew out his voice on bab o reilly at a performance in i think cleveland. I've herad the audio and it sounded bad so maybe that would be the reasoning behind it.

[Bob]

Cut Daltrey some slack. That scream was hard enough to do in 1971. I think we can forgive the man for not being able to pull it off to the same degree nearly 40 years later.

[Shadow]

I'm not diggin on him at all, anyone who can put on a performance like that at his age should be commended. I just thought it was kinda werid how they made it look really artificial. the show itself was great. have they always had the R.A.F. symbol cymbals?(awkward to say) the stage was sweet. overall the best performance at the halftime show in a while, not saying much but on any day that was a great show.

[Metalboy!]

Dudes, even with the extra geetar support (two additional guitarists), Townsend still didn't have it kranked enuff. Don't know if the powers that be wouldn't let him or if he just doesn't remember how to do it.

If he's deaf, what duz he care? Unless it's a decibel legality issue.

Whatever the case, it was not at "Live at Leeds" or "Woodstock" levels.

Tamed down for mass consumption, as usual.

And the elaborate porta-stage? Come on, boyz, that is the most boring thing I've seen in yearz. It looked like a crashed but intact variation on ET's rescue spaceship and Reno strip joint neon. What's with the cheezoid cut outs of Townsend windmilling on the sides?

Dunno about Daltry's scream. I saw 'em in 2002 at Madison Square Garden not too long before Entwistle checked out and Daltry nailed that scream just like last night, so maybe there's a shot it was actually him unleashing it during half time. I'm wagering it was actually him. Killer if it was and not pre-recorded!

P.S. Do we have a Counsel for the Cauldron assembling here, boyz? Or are ya gonna run off like last time?

[Shadow]

Come on man, this was better than springsteen's junk last year and eons ahead of the stones and tom petty. agree with me here please! and yes if the scream was real that was awesome!

[kari]

WHO DAT, YEAH YOU RIGHT!!! I've been in the land of Superbowl Saints Mania the last few days. Just hanging downtown with the rest of the city. I thought it was quite appropriate that the WHO happened to play for the WHO DATS!!! Everyone in the Hard Rock was chanting 'who dat' in replacement of 'who who' during the song. A magical magical moment, great freakin' game, Lombardi Gras has begun! VICTORY PARADE tonight!

[Metalboy!]

Awesome, Kari!

Your team ROXX!, and me and my 94-year-old "Dad", well, the man who raised me... remember, I'm Metalboy! Well, we were both rootin' for y'all and my various contacts throughout the nation were also!

I'm amazed at how many sheep I kept runnin' into right up to the game who were rootin' for the other team just cuz all the money was on 'em.

I knew New Orleans was gonna win cuz they know how to Cry Tough, as opposed to Manning, who knows how to be a Cry Baby!

The Who? Who Dat!, dat who!

p.s. To the Peenut Gallery... Look, Daltry's scream was there, but Pete's geetarz just weren't (and his insurance policy side-kick's geetarz weren't, either), plain and simple.

And you wouldn't believe the rig I have for a home theater system to really check it out. And there weren't nuthin' to check out. They buried 'im and that's it, done. His amps used to go to 11.

It sounded like they put a little governor on The Guvn'r.

Too bad!

[Kiki Chrome]

Ach! Consider yourselves lucky that you didn't have to watch the international broadcast version that we got! The audio synch on the whole halftime show was about two seconds off - which was friggin hilarious, because it made the performance look like the worst lip-synch since Britney Spears! I couldn't have told you whether that was Daltry screaming or Manning. I wish I'd recorded it!

I agree though: Townsend wasn't exactly rockin me.