Bill Burr: Paper Tiger | Official Trailer | Netflix

Baba Booey told me to watch it.

The news has got me depressed.

I know, I know, you’re overloaded, you don’t want to hear my opinion, I get that. But you’ve got to read this story in the “New York Times,”

“How Florida Republicans Are Talking About Impeachment – Working-class Republicans see Donald Trump as a white businessman who made a lot of money. The investigations only strengthen their kinship with him”

I know, I know, both sides are up in arms. The right hates being labeled and the left says it’s all not true.

So maybe you should read Robert Reich’s column,

No wonder Wall Street fears Warren and Sanders – they speak for the people

Oh, now you certainly won’t bother. I’ve given you homework, two articles. Remember hyperlinks? How everything was gonna be connected to everything else? Well, now it is, and we’re on strike, we never want to click through, we’re overloaded, and everything’s a scam, made to sell us something or perpetrate some untruth.

So since I’m now deep in the hole, I’m gonna give you one more…

Hmm, I can’t find it. It was on the “Washington Post” app. It was facetious, talking about how the Democrats need a new centrist candidate, because none of those running today appeal to anybody.

Maybe you don’t even get the joke. No one gets the joke anymore. We’re too thin-skinned, protective of the little territory we’ve got.

And that’s what Bill Burr skewers.

Now I remember when my favorite comedian was Alan King. And to tell you the truth, the young comics give King props. But those comedians aren’t even young anymore, they’re boomers, so he’ll be forgotten.

But in the early seventies, there was a comedy revolution. Its name was George Carlin.

Carlin famously changed his act, he couldn’t do the Hippy-Dippy Weatherman anymore, he had to speak his truth, about politics and society. His old audience abandoned him, but he soon had a new one on board. Carlin’s routines were legendary. About baseball versus football. But also about the seven dirty words you can’t say on television. And in my head right now, I remember his routine on voting…you can vote all you want, do it if it makes you feel good, but the owners of this country are never gonna let you have any power. It went something like that.

Carlin was a dorm room favorite. Along with the Firesign Theatre. But Firesign was more about absurdity, whereas Carlin was more about truth, he changed people’s minds.

Like Bill Burr.

We’re going through a comedy revolution folks. And it doesn’t quite look like the one that came before. Oh, there have been comedians forever. But then the giant sitcom opportunity opened up. Even before “Mork,” even after “Seinfeld,” that was the holy grail, to get a network sitcom. Yup, “network,” does anybody watch network anymore? No, but they do remember laughter.

So now maybe you have a podcast, and a Twitter feed, to popularize yourself, to stay in contact with your audience, so they’ll come see you live, so they’ll watch your Netflix special.

Yup, the comedy specials used to be dribbled out on HBO. Starting with Robert Klein and then George Carlin…comedy was a poor stepsister. But not on Netflix, there’s more than you can eat there. To the point where one is overwhelmed and doesn’t play at all. Do you ever get that feeling? That you’re so far behind that you might as well not even start? Miss some “Succession,” some “Billions”…sure, you could stream history, the earlier episodes, but do you really care that much? You already missed being part of the discussion, and you’re gonna take hours away from something else.

And it’s even worse with music. It rains down on you every damn day. They keep telling us the biggest acts are big, but they’re nowhere near as big as those of yore, and those of yore release albums and they’re gone immediately. Yup, Madonna put out a new album. Bruce too. Oh, Bruce is trying to goose his project with some movie, but why do I need to watch that? It’s for hard core fans, it’s not part of the mainstream, nobody will talk about it, at least not rationally.

It’s like we’re in a grain silo. And they keep on pouring in new corn, or wheat, and we’re slowly sinking, to our deaths. We want to be part of the culture, we want to fit in, but today we’re all in our own verticals. Even worse, nobodies on social media are imploring us to get into their verticals. Why?

So we wait for suggestions. We need to hear from a trusted source. Or a few people. Before we partake.

We finished the third season of “Goliath.” When it was done, I said THAT SUCKED. And Felice started complaining about the loose ends and I started searching for a new show. I wanted to watch that French agent show but couldn’t find it fast enough so we settled for Bill Burr.

I was not prepared.

Only cartoon characters and comedians can speak the truth in today’s society. That’s what made the “Simpsons” so popular. The truth, we could accept it from two-dimensional characters.

But the heyday of cartoons is past, how long has the “Simpsons” been on the air? I love that they’re still producing new episodes, but I gave up years ago. Felice is done with “South Park,” I read about it in the news, but I don’t watch it. And the new cartoons? They’re safe. Everything’s safe in America, for fear someone will get offended.

Like the trailer for “Paper Tiger” above. Netflix is too scared to show the essence of Bill Burr’s act, they just defer to the usual marriage stuff.

But the truth is…

Let’s see, it started with Dave Chappelle, nearly two years ago, on his New Year’s special. He said if the women don’t involve men in the Me Too discussion, there will be no forward movement.

Here we are.

So Burr hits the stage and says so much offensive stuff, the stuff you can’t say, about women and race and… You know, trigger words, sensitivity. And at first you’re shocked, you don’t know quite know how to digest this. He doesn’t really mean it…or does he? But then Burr switches sides and starts talking about Kaepernick, how people criticized him saying they have relatives fighting in Iraq… Nobody gets the story anymore, they’re too busy defending themselves.

Yup, tonight I listened to Laura Ingraham. Tucker Carlson too. They’re dead serious. This is war. But the viewpoint is so slanted that if you’re living in that bubble, you’ve got no idea what’s going on.

Oh, don’t give me that crap about MSNBC being the same thing on the left, it’s not. You may not agree with MSNBC, but it’s not outright lies, facts are not omitted to make the case. Yup, today Ingraham accused Vindman of espionage. Is no one safe? Is everybody working the refs?

Not comedians.

Of course we’ve got a ton of standups afraid of the third rail, worried about offending someone, decreasing their audience. But the truth is unless you’re passionate, about the truth, unless you push it over the limit, you’re irrelevant, you’re entertainment, like most of the musicians.

Yup, musicians are now “brands.” Do you want to cozy up with Tide? Maybe Downy? No, musicians are people. And it should be about the music, but now that’s just a starting point, to building an empire.

Yup, most of these “musicians” are uneducated nitwits, grubbing for a dollar, believing if they just work hard enough they can be Bill Gates. Huh?

But the comedians?

You’ve got to be smart to make it work.

Now one of the most confounding things about recent right wing politicians is that they frequently like left wing music. Yup, Chris Christie loves Springsteen. How do you explain that? I mean the Boss is all about the working man and unions, but Christie loves the sound.

The same way people love the jokes.

Being a comedian is the best gig ever, assuming you’ve got an audience. You show up at the hall, maybe with your own microphone, maybe with a road manager/buddy, and you take home all the money. Yup, costs are almost nil.

But it used to be only English comedians could sell out arenas.

Now it happens in the U.S. too. There’s so much money, you don’t need a TV show, you don’t need to be in movies.

But Bill Burr was. Still is. He’s 51 years old, he’s paid a ton of dues.

No one expects a comedian to be great out of the box. They’ve got to woodshed. But fifteen year old pop stars? We’re all for it. Forget the life experience, they’re young and cute and adolescents are brain dead and will buy anything, even virtual goods, so let’s appeal to them. If you’re an adult, it’s scant pickings.

But not in comedy. You can get away with almost anything, by saying it’s a joke!

Of course I know that’s not true, Bill Maher lost his TV show. But the needle is moving back to the center, there is pushback, because comedians thrive on this stuff. Hell, I saw Richard Pryor at the Comedy Store mere months after he burned himself up. What did he do? Richard Pryor jokes! He knew what we’d been saying. It felt like we were exposed. It was brilliant comedy.

So, Chappelle doesn’t apologize. Maybe he is homophobic, but he puts it out there.

You may not be able to host the Oscars, but the truth is your fans understand and those complaining oftentimes have never even seen your act, never mind being fans.

I’m not endorsing homophobia, but the truth is unless we discuss the issues, there will be no progress. Yup, Bill Burr sheds more light on Me Too than a month’s worth of opinion pieces, and he does it with comedy.

That’s what’s gonna change the discourse. Because the young and impressionable are addicted to these jokesters. And those on the right and left too. We agree on comedy. We can no longer agree on music, so much else, but when someone prowls the stage and starts hanging it out there, daring us to laugh…

That’s right, our only hope of coming together as a nation, not only solving our problems, but first seeing our problems, is comedy. We all watch, and one thing about comedy, it makes you think.

Comedy today is dangerous. I’m not talking about rap feuds, where people get shot, but the mind.

Watch Bill Burr’s special. You may not laugh at first, but then he’ll nail something and you won’t stop snorting.

Now unfortunately, Burr ultimately slides into the marriage wars, to his detriment. Granted, you need stories to hold the set together, but there’s just not that edge, it’s just not as dangerous. The key is to not be warm and fuzzy, to not reveal the trick, to leave the audience wondering…was that real? Does he really believe that? WHAT DO I BELIEVE?

Tune in, Tuesday October 29nd, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863

Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: HearLefsetzLive

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: LefsetzLive

“Are you Lefsetz?”

First rule of meeting famous people…

Never introduce yourself. It never goes well. They’re caught off guard, they usually have no idea who you are, and even if they do they’re flummoxed, you have to start explaining yourself, it never ends up good. What you’ve got to do is wait for someone to introduce you. And sometimes the opportunity never arises. And believe me, I don’t want to be introduced to anybody who does not know me. Then I’m just another fan, gushing. And sure, we all like to hear positive feedback.

But there’s a hierarchy.

I went to the wrong bathroom. I saw Pete Townshend’s name next door. And Roger Daltrey’s too. So I did my business and on the way out I ran into Simon Townshend, who’d retweeted what I had to say about the new Who song “All This Music Must Fade.” So I figured I’d go for it, at least we were in the inner sanctum.

Simon had no idea who I was.

So, to show I was not a nobody, I asked him which guitar he was playing last night, the one that looked like an SG, but only had one pickup. He said it was a Les Paul Junior. Explained what that was. And then testified about his blonde ’68 Telecaster, and then I made my exit, somewhat gracefully, back out to the terrace, backstage.

Yes, I was backstage.

You see this was the benefit for the Teenage Cancer Trust. Roger Daltrey’s charity that Pete contributes to. They do it every year. At a house in the Palisades. Four acts. Tonight it was Kenny Loggins, Pink, Foo Fighters and the Who.

And it was five thousand bucks.

That’s right, for a good cause.

And I expected hitters. You know, oldsters. Who else could drop this kind of cash?

Thirty and fortysomethings. That’s who comprised the audience. Threw me for a loop. You know, the skinny women with their sport-jacketed men. No one came dressed down.

This is how the elite live.

This is not the music business. You can’t find a thousand people with this kind of cash, not on their own. Oh, maybe their company might buy a table for the City of Hope, but chances are it’s much less per person. As for digging into your own pocket…isn’t that what expense accounts are for?

Sure, it’s a good cause. But how much money do you make?

And Kenny Loggins was playing, quite well, and almost no one was paying attention. You see it was more about being there, hanging out, getting a story to tell, than salivating at the stars.

This was the Fyre Festival crew.

You know, you wondered who all these youngsters were, willing to drop four figures to hang with influencers?

Well, they’re the people I went to college with. You know, the strivers. Who got good grades in high school to get into a good college where they excelled to get into a good graduate school and now they’re comfortable, but I didn’t expect them to be THIS comfortable!

Bummed me out.

I knew nobody and didn’t fit in.

Now do you know the odds of going to a party in L.A. and not knowing anybody? Essentially zilch. Hell, you’re probably gonna run into somebody you know at Gelson’s, or Whole Foods. But now I’m at a music-dominated evening and there’s not a soul I know?

After fressing on some shrimp, the pickins’ were really fine, after filling up, I sat down on a couch, alone. I didn’t worry about looking like a loser, no one knew who I was.

Except for the guy who checked me in, he read the Letter.

But the valet parker?

They steered me away. My car was dirty, it’s fourteen years old, there was no way I was going to this party, but I was.

And when you get that many people in one small space cell service goes down the drain. Unless you bring in a portable unit, good luck connecting.

So I’m sitting there. Looking at my watch. Was I really gonna sit alone for three hours to see the Who?

Now I was invited by the director of the organization. But I saw no hierarchy.

And as I was sinking I thought…I’ll text Tom, the LD, no way he’s here, when is he gonna arrive?

Eventually Tom texts back that he is there, backstage.

But the connection is so spotty, this conversation takes more than half an hour. Tom asks if I’ve got my laminate from the previous evening, my all access pass. I actually saved it, and a couple of years back I threw all of ’em out, I’m a hoarder, it was a breakthrough, and to tell you the truth I don’t really miss them, but I am saving the all access pass to the Stones, and am gonna save this one to the Who too. They’re badges of honor, that I’ve ascended to the mountaintop, gotten inside.

Well, not at this event. I could not convince the bouncer to let me past the velvet rope. Even though he was letting punters through because he’d gotten some signal via his earpiece. He was a beefy guy. You never want to rush by one of these guys, they’re there to serve and enforce, as in picking up your ass and throwing it across the room. Yup, I’ve seen that. Actually, I’ve experienced it. But that’s another story…

But finally Tom comes up with another pass and now I’m hanging backstage, with my people.

On the other side of the rope I didn’t connect, but here I fit in fine.

The best conversation was with Perry Farrell, who looked like a million bucks. He knew who I was, Geiger mentioned my name. Perry told me about taking a Greyhound bus from Florida to Los Angeles at 23, he had to make it, he knew he was gonna make it.

And I was having a fine time with people completely different from those on the other side of the stage. And that felt good. Communicating. With those I knew and those I didn’t.

But then, before the Foos went on, to my left, I saw Pete Townshend talking to a man and two women.

But there was no way in hell I was gonna go up to him, no way.

But Pete sauntered over to me and uttered the words at the top of this screed.

I told Pete I was, Lefsetz that is. Whereupon he said he read what I wrote about “All This Music Must Fade,” and thanked me for it, and then said he does read me from time to time, and he agrees with me sometimes, but other times…

And he looked in my eyes and nearly sneered.

But he’d approached me, so I had license to continue the conversation, which I did.

And then Pete got all serious, direct, real.

He told me about the time Leonard Bernstein gave him props. Spread his arms wide, told Pete how great he was. This was the guy who wrote “West Side Story,” it meant so much to Pete.

Just like Pete asking me if I was Lefsetz did to me.

And since cell coverage was so damn bad, I told him I’d written about last night’s show at the Bowl but he probably hadn’t seen it, but Pete said no, he’d read it.

That’s the reach that means so much to me.

And now we’re talking. About what Pete’s reading, about what it’s like getting older, how to maintain perspective, how to move forward. And I’m walking a razor’s edge, I don’t want to burden him, but I don’t want to unnecessarily back off either.

But then Pete pulled away and I got back into it with Bill and…

It was all right.

By time the Who came on, a good percentage of the people had left. About half, maybe sixty percent.

But those remaining, most of them really wanted to see the Who.

Now it’s kinda hard to explain. It was kinda like being in the garage, it was kinda like being at a high school dance, maybe a battle of the bands, the Who, the real Who, were mere feet away, doing their arena show, their stadium show, for a couple of hundred people. And it’s not like they were trying to convince us, close us, instead they were just mowing us down. As if Paul McCartney opened your front door and started playing “Yesterday,” not even acknowledging you. But the Beatles never hit you over the head, bulldozed you.

But the Who did, and still do.

But the set list was not the same as last night.

You know you can go to setlist.fm and see what everybody plays? Most big acts don’t even change it from show to show, but I don’t want to know, I want to be surprised.

And I was, when they played “The Seeker.”

I’m looking for me
You’re looking for you
We’re looking at each other
And we don’t know what to do

“The Seeker” was the follow-up to “Tommy.” It was a two-sided single, the flip side was “Join Together,” with its Jew’s harp intro, imploring us to follow along, join the band, go down the road together.

But “The Seeker” was something else. It was a commentary on the times. Too sophisticated for Top Forty, “The Seeker” got some FM airplay, but was not a hit. Next came “Who’s Next.” But by that point, FM ruled.

Now I never owned the single. But “The Seeker” was included in Rykodisc’s CD release of Pete Townshend’s “Who Came First?” And that’s when I got really into it.

I asked Bobby Dylan
I asked the Beatles
I asked Timothy Leary
But he couldn’t help me either

Pete was rejecting all the gurus, he was thinking for himself, he was looking, but he did not want to get fooled again.

And tonight was Roger’s evening. In a smaller environment, looser and noisier, he could let go, not have to play to the nosebleeds, just be the same guy he ever was.

And the truth is they raised almost four million for the Teen Cancer Trust. Costs were low, just about ten percent, which is pretty damn good.

But the highlight of the fundraising, the peak, which touched and titillated us all, was the performance by Ken.

Bill told me backstage. That some guy paid $250,000 to play drums on one song.

Now that’s another element of the band, Zach Starkey. He doesn’t nod his head like his dad, he stays focused, he leans in, nobody could be Keith Moon, but Zach is the right drummer for this band.

So they have to unwind Zach. Take off his in-ear monitors. They put headphones on Ken and he sits on the stool…

He’s a nerd with glasses. Wearing a printed shirt. A bit beyond pudgy.

And Pete is not giving him the benefit of the doubt. He says it’s an experiment, it’s worth the money, but he isn’t expecting much.

So Simon starts strumming his acoustic. Pete’s on one of his red Stratocasters. They’re playing “Pinball Wizard.”

And Ken is just sitting behind the kit, doing nothing, looking incompetent and afraid.

And he touches a cymbal, but that’s it.

And then, nearly a minute into it, Pete turns around and nods, and Ken WAILS!

They didn’t want to be nerds, they wanted to be baseball players, they wanted to be musicians, but they took the straight path, and their dreams never died.

Ken is pounding, hitting the various skins, it’s positively riveting. This guy knows what he’s doing!

And at the end of the song, Pete gives him space to solo, to flourish.

And then it’s done.

And the assembled multitude starts chanting “KEN! KEN! KEN!

But this was the end.

Now Pete doesn’t talk like a rock star, he’s not worried about charisma, his on stage patter is like you’re sitting with him in a booth in a bar. It’s conversational, with an edge baked in. But when he picks up that guitar, when Roger twirls that mic, when Zach pounds those drums…I’d say it’s akin to a freight train, but it’s more powerful than that, more emotional than that, a spike is driven right through your heart and then Pete and the band run right over you, and don’t look back.

The call me the seeker
I’ve been searching low and high
I won’t get to get what I’m after
Til the day I die

That’s what I realize, we’ve all got our dreams, our destinations, as I said, there’s a hierarchy. For Pete, it was Bernstein, for me it was Pete himself. And the closer you get, the more you know, you realize it’s all about the individual, you yourself. You’re in charge of your destiny. And I hope you don’t hew to the straight and narrow, that you try your best to find your one true direction, because everything your parents ever told you is true. Yup, life goes by real fast, before you notice, it’s more than half way over.

As Jackson Browne so eloquently put it in “Fountain of Sorrow”:

And while the future’s there for anyone to change, still you know it seems
It would be easier sometimes to change the past

You get stuck in a rut, it’s comfortable.

But you don’t want to feel too comfortable in this life, as Chuck Yeager said, you want to push the envelope.

I’m just one or two years and a couple of changes behind you
In my lessons at love’s pain and heartache school

Yup, I’m just a couple of years and a couple of changes behind Pete Townshend, still hanging on for the lessons.

And Pete’s from damp dank England.

Whereas Jackson Browne is from sunny L.A.

But tonight, at the edge of the continent, by the ocean, we all came together. We threw off our chains. We followed the music and we found what we were looking for…

Hope.

Resonance.

Soul.

That’s the power of music. It may not be able to move mountains, but it can raise a whole bunch of money for charity. Because we all want to get closer to that flame.

First comes love, sex, relationships.

And then comes music. Music works when you’re together and also when you’re apart. It speaks to you, it gets through to you.

So I must ask, who are you?

I really wanna know.

But not as much as you want to know yourself.

This is our classical music.

This was Pete’s show. Not that Roger was not great, not that the vocals were superfluous, it’s just that Pete SHINED!

You know Pete, complaining about his tinnitus, saying he’s got to play behind plexiglass, has to strum an acoustic…THAT’S HISTORY!

The show began with Liam Gallagher, in a poncho on a blisteringly hot night. You can see why his brother hates him, it’s the same thing that makes Liam a rock star, his ATTITUDE! He’s gonna live his life, he’s gonna do what he wants to do, he even spit on the stage, but he needs Noel to make it work, his version of “Wonderwall” was anemic, but if Liam and Noel were in a stadium in England you would have felt it, Oasis are superstars there, but not here.

But the Who pioneered those antics. Moon did whatever he wanted with a grin instead of a sneer. And if you interfered with Townshend…he famously kicked Abbie Hoffman off the Woodstock stage, famously punted a police officer off the boards at the Fillmore East, Pete was busy doing his thing, it was secondary to the fire burning next door, you see Pete was wrapped up in the music.

And he was last night.

Pete came out in blue coveralls, akin to the white ones he used to wear back in the day, like on the cover of “Who Comes First?” You see Pete Townshend came to WORK!

This is so different from today’s acts. Eager to tie up with a clothing company, to design their own attire, trying to chase the tech billionaires.

But they’ll never get there, there’s just not enough money in the tunes. The playing, the audience adulation, that should be enough.

And they turn up the bass in the new music, to the point where your body might shake, but that’s completely different from what the Who are trading in, which is POWER!

Now most acts play with orchestras to fill in the occasional string parts. But last night, the orchestra was an integral part of the show, which began with the “Overture” from “Tommy.”

In the last few decades “Quadrophenia” has superseded “Tommy” in the public consciousness, but it was “Tommy” that was the original breakthrough. The rock opera. With one semi-hit single. Which really didn’t peak until the hoi polloi saw Roger Daltrey implore them to SEE ME, FEEL ME, TOUCH ME, HEAL ME in the Woodstock movie.

Yup, the Who were always pushing the limits. And unlike the hair bands, there were no ballads, no soft songs made to appeal to those who might be afraid, they were not casting a big net, either you entered the door, agreed to get caught, or you didn’t.

I did. First, by “I Can See For Miles,” which they even played last night, I heard it on the Bromley jukebox, I had to buy the single.

But before that, when the orchestra was still in play, they took us on an amazing journey, through music we knew by heart, but was never featured on AM radio. It was too dangerous for Top Forty, it wasn’t made for Top Forty.

Except the one song that came out a few months before the “Tommy” double album. You know the one. That started with an acoustic guitar, and then…an electric EXPLODED IN THE OTHER EAR!

Ever since I was a young boy
I played the silver ball

Pinball machines are for museums, but they were part of our youth, as was this track, it’s embedded in our brains, but the amazing thing last night was Pete strummed the intro on an acoustic, furiously, to get that exact same sound, it was a triumph!

People talk about Page. Beck. Clapton. Hendrix.

Hendrix is dead. Clapton is sick of playing God, he’s emphasizing his blues side. Beck still wails, but his material is not that memorable. Page’s is, but without Robert, he’s lost. But Townshend?

Yup, he’s never mentioned in that elite club. But last night…

He switched Stratocasters. You could see him moving his fingers up and down the neck. Sometimes playing sans pick. Using the whammy bar. Running his pick down by the bridge. He was eking out all of the sounds Leo Fender baked into his axe, AND MANY MORE!

Yup, we’ve been so focused on the songs, we forgot about the playing. It started with a guitar. We boomers know. We all bought electrics after the Beatles broke. We wanted in on what they had, all the acts from England, they were one with their instruments, the music was all that mattered, and in its wake came money and women. That’s right, rock made you grow up as you were touring the world, exposed to everything for the first time, with means, not as a JV player, but a member of the varsity, in fact you owned the game.

And after the “Tommy” portion of the program, Pete took the mic and said they were gonna rock harder. And after “Who Are You” came…

A rambling soliloquy from Pete. He was telling a story. Saying “CSI” was not his first TV sync, that, in fact, it started with “Miami Vice,” back in the old days. He said they were gonna play a song…

Well, he was in the swamp, and he wandered off to an outlying building and then he said…this was a song about what happens to you when you take too much cocaine!

Behind an eminence front
An eminence front, it’s a put on

Once again, it was the power of the delivery. Not only the band, but the whole orchestra hitting those notes, sending waves of power into the Bowl. Didn’t matter that these songs were not brand new, didn’t feature an 808 or a rap, it was positively present, not only because of the aforesaid power of the musicians, but Pete’s DELIVERY! It seems he sat at home long enough, in truth he was a musician, he had to go out and ply the boards.

And it’s not like it’s not about the money. Deep into the show he said they were gonna come back next year, and then he caught himself and said they weren’t, that they’d taken all the money out of the market. That cracked me up, that’s insider talk, and with three shows at the Bowl with high prices, they probably did!

And “Imagine A Man” from “Who By Numbers” was a complete surprise, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I would have preferred to hear “How Many Friends” from that album, Roger’s heartfelt tour-de-force.

Then Pete sent the orchestra away. It was just them.

That’s when they played “I Can See For Miles.” And “Substitute.” Roger had us singing along with “You Better You Bet.” But then came the piece-de-resistance. Pete sent the rest of the band away, now it was only the two of them. Pete on an acoustic guitar, then again, they don’t have any wimpy numbers.

We’ll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet

That’s right, they did “Won’t Get Fooled Again” totally ACOUSTIC! With Roger belting the lyrics and Pete strumming that guitar like he might destroy it. But those days are through, except for the windmills. Oh yeah, they were brought out. That’s the power of an electric guitar and amp, you can make a glorious noise!

It seems we’ve been fooled again. They stole everything with meaning. Music became about the penumbra, the tunes sounded the same, melody went out the window, oftentimes you couldn’t even sing along. The movies were now cartoons, not deep explorations of angst, like “Quadrophenia,” the best rock movie ever made. We got great TV and smartphones, but deep in our hearts we yearn for what once was, when the sound was everything, when you went to the show not to shoot selfies but to bask in the sound, when you knew all the axes and the amplifiers and…

“Won’t Get Fooled Again” is over eight minutes long in its studio incarnation, but Roger and Pete did not shorten it for public consumption, they weren’t worried about burning out the audience, bathroom breaks, they seemed to almost be doing it for themselves, deep in a trance, deep in the moment. This was not a dash for cash, the band played for two hours and fifteen minutes, they gave it their all, goddamn the other twenty two hours in the day!

No one really knows what it’s like to be the bad man, the sad man behind blue eyes. Although these days, we know what it’s like to be hated, at least I do. Used to be musicians were adulated, now they’re castigated.

We had hours only lonely, where we lay on our beds and listened to this music.

“Behind Blue Eyes” demonstrated that the Who couldn’t be classified. It wasn’t just mindless headbanging, as a matter of fact, the lyrics were insightful, and like in this number, delivered sweetly, at least until…

We laugh and act like a fool. That’s what happiness is, letting go.

And then came the “Quadrophenia” part of the show.

But this time there were real strings, not synths.

Can you see the real me?

Most definitely not. We were locked up inside, afraid to reveal our truth, back in the era of singularity, before it all became groupthink. Our only release was these records, turns out the players felt what we felt, and it set us free.

Now if you bought “Deep End (Live),” and I most certainly did, I could not break free from Pete and the Who, I was in for the duration, you know the best song on the LP…

Every year is the same
And I feel it again
I’m a loser, no chance to win
Leaves start fallin’
Comedown is callin’
Loneliness starts sinking in

It’s that time of year, the one when “Quadrophenia” first came out, when the leaves are gone from the trees, when everybody is buckled down and you feel left out. And what’s next? The dreaded holidays!

I’m one
I am one
And I can see
That this is me
And I will be
You’ll all see
I’m the one

Forget the self-help books, forget the gurus, the business geniuses telling you what to do, if you want to truly be inspired crank a record up to 11, that’s why all the athletes wear headphones before the contest.

So we took a ride on the 5:15, we let love reign over us, and we thought it was done. I mean, that’s how you end the show, right? It’s after 10:30, this is the last number on the double album. BUT NO!

There was denouement. No music. The assembled multitude was basking in the applause. You can sense when a show is done.

I’ve never even watched an episode of “CSI.” But I have seen the intro, which pulses with the sounds of…

Out here in the fields
I fight for my meals

We thought back, we remembered, we were brought back to what once was and for this evening still was, we were in TEENAGE WASTELAND!

This was back when you still had free time, before teens were scheduled, spending their summers in some foreign country burnishing their resume for college applications. We could take a break and…

Listen to our records.

Now this was not a young crowd. Everybody looked old and lumpy. Some were in their concert finery, but at this point we know we’re done, or close to it.

And so does Pete Townshend.

Daltrey looks at least fifteen years younger. He’s still the lead singer. But Pete looks every one of his seventy four years. What hair he’s got is grey. You wonder how much longer he can do this. And then you see him perform last night and you realize FOREVER! Seventy is not the new sixty, that’s what those who are afraid of aging tell themselves. The truth is you are closer to death. And you can’t jump and run, but you can still play the guitar and listen to the music.

It’s not that this Who show was far superior to what came before, it’s not that you have to run out and buy a ticket to say farewell. No, the Who are not retiring, for all I know they’ll die on stage. They’re still performing with the same vigor, it’s positively an inspiration.

It was pure and easy. We all know success when we find our own dream. That was the promise of the sixties, that we could be who we wanted to be, ourselves, that we didn’t have to go to Wall Street, we didn’t have to sell out. But most of us did. But…Pete Townshend did not. We heard the words when he played that guitar.

There once was a note…listen
There once was a note…LISTEN!