This is what happens when you try to protect legacy partners.

And when you let newbies run your business.

Music was the canary in the coal mine for digital disruption. Not that anybody paid attention to what happened. The music business is seen as a poor stepsister run by street hustlers purveying substandard content. Everybody forgets that the Warner Music Group’s profits built the Warner cable system, everybody forgets that music used to make more money than movies, Richard Parsons has never been held accountable for blowing out Warner Music at a rock bottom price, when it rose in value not long thereafter, and is still rising in value. That’s corporate owners, they play for the short term, not the long term. As for the music business, it’s doing quite fine, thank you. Turns out there was a lot more money in concert tickets than previously thought, prices have gone through the roof and customers have paid them. And more opportunities to partner with third party companies. As for recorded music revenues, they went up when rights holders stopped trying to bring back the past and admitted we live in a new era, and that the public wants on demand and that streaming satisfies this. Sure, recorded music revenues haven’t returned to their pre-internet level yet, then again, today recorded music revenues are a smaller piece of the pie than ever. Furthermore, music was in the right place at the right time when it turned out the younger generations were more interested in experiences than acquiring goods.

Never underestimate a founder. Steve Jobs came back and revitalized Apple and Reed Hastings pivoted Netflix from DVD by mail to streaming and created a monolith, one that traditional outlets sold to and derided at the same time and then decided they must compete with.

Credit Disney, they came out with a rock bottom price. They own modern movies, albeit superheroes, and they own children’s television, and they shocked the sphere by coming out with a product for $6.99 a month. That’s less than Netflix. It’s a shot across the bow. They’re here to compete, and they’re going to be in the marketplace in two weeks.

And then there’s Apple. It’s giving away its TV streaming service for free to people who buy its products. As for others…it’ll be $4.99. If Apple has a hit show, you can rationalize that amount, it’s certainly less than a movie. It’s barely more than a latte.

But HBO Max? Demonstrating its hubris, the price is gonna be $14.99, when the service launches in May. Ever hear of a first mover advantage?

One thing is for sure, at this late date the entertainment world still doesn’t understand the lessons of tech, wherein you give it away for free, grow your fanbase and then charge and then raise the price. Audience is key, audience is everything. And also-rans have a hard time generating mass. Try to compete with Facebook lately? How about Google? Even Microsoft couldn’t put a dent in Google search.

But HBO/AT&T can’t piss off its cable partners.

This is just like the record labels saying they couldn’t piss off their retail partners, those selling CDs who either went out of business or threw the labels under the bus. There is no more Tower Records. As for Best Buy? It didn’t mind taking back all that floor space to hawk other products.

You never protect your legacy customers, where are they gonna go?

Out of business!

The biggest threat to cable systems is not channel pricing, it’s not even streaming services, it’s 5G. I can’t wait to get rid of my cable provider. They charge a car payment for service and if you want to get rid of TV they just up the price of internet. It’s kinda like the record labels at the turn of the century. People were so pissed about one good track on an overpriced CD that they didn’t think twice about file-trading, acquiring MP3s. I’d love to see Spectrum go out of business.

As for AT&T…

Acquiring DirectTV? In an era of internet supremacy? That deal is one of the worst of all time. While they’re at it, why don’t they invest in diesel cars. If something is going in the wrong direction, you buy it at a rock bottom price, not a premium. But that’s what happens when wankers with no history, no understanding of another business, dive in, ultimately to their detriment.

We saw this movie already in music. With Andrew Lack. Yup, he came from television, he came from news, he must know more than the idiots in music. He instituted the rootkit and decimated the credibility of Sony Music, and then was blown out and returned to news. What does John Stankey know about entertainment…NOTHING!

This is what happens when you get the consulting companies involved, the bean counters, the accountants. They run on numbers, not instinct. And believe me, entertainment is about instinct. There are no numbers that will tell you what’s a hit. Furthermore, if you’re lucky enough to have one, you need relationships, honed over years, to make it one in the marketplace.

Of course AT&T would lose money if it lowered the price of HBO to cable systems. But it would be building towards the future, when cable systems die! And what is a cable system gonna do, keep HBO offline? Then customers will just sign up for AT&T’s streaming product! That’s right, AT&T doesn’t even have to lower the price to cable systems, they have nowhere to go! Did labels lower the price of CDs to retailers when people were stealing their product willy-nilly online? Of course not!

Everybody is not going to subscribe to every streaming service, no way. Right now I refuse to sign up for Hulu. I’m paying Spectrum for all the cable channels, I’ve got Netflix, Amazon Prime… It’s not like I don’t have enough programming, I feel insulted, ripped-off.

This is another thing purveyors of visual content don’t understand. Streaming music sites have everything. Why can’t there be the same offering in TV? They’re balkanizing the product to their detriment. Not to mention that those with little new product, like HBO Max, will experience churn…i.e. viewers will sign up and sign off based on hits. If you’ve got everything in one place, churn is reduced.

Kinda like it used to be on cable. If you wanted the product, there was nowhere else to go.

But now there are a ton of places to go.

Someone should roll up all these streaming TV channels for one low price. That’s what I want. Charge me $39.99 and I get everything, today and forevermore. Sure, you can raise the price, but not right away. Spotify is still growing its audience, now is not the time to alienate customers. When they’re hooked and have no other options, that’s when you stick it to them.

Netflix has first mover advantage. It has a plethora of new product. If you think people are going to disconnect because of Disney Plus and HBO Max, you’re wrong. Those two outlets have to convince customers to add their services, forcing viewers to make an economic choice. Do I need two cars? How many pairs of skis do I need? Am I really gonna feel left out if I don’t have your service, in a world where we’re all watching different product anyway, where ratings for shows are lower than ever, where the only club is in your house, in a Tower of Babel society.

You don’t price based on Excel, you price on gut.

Customers no longer expect new products to be expensive with kinks to be worked out, they expect it to be cheap and flawless, with the price rising when the market is stabilized.

The road is littered with legacy companies bitching their cheese has been moved. The key is not to placate them, but to put them out of business. And to survive, first you need eyeballs. In a world of cacophony, where there are so many options, that is difficult to do.

As for HBO Max’s launch, they couldn’t even get that right.

Apple launches to the public, via its keynotes. The public pays, not the scribes. Furthermore, the scribes mean less than ever before. Sure, it’s a business story, and the investors are eager for information, but this is the same press that went along with WeWork and… Facebook stock went down before it went up, the street is clueless when it comes to the value of a new business, the key is customers. And AT&T/HBO Max left them out of the equation, in an egalitarian society where the hoi polloi believe they’re equal to the titans.

I’m not saying that HBO Max will be a complete failure. But I am saying good luck reaching your projections, which come out of thin air anyway. Steve Jobs had no idea the iTunes Store would be a runaway success, neither did his suppliers, the labels. Predicting the future on a new product is like…making it up. Yup, that’s what they’re doing, making it up there is no data that can establish the success of HBO Max.

But everybody prints the story and moves on to the next.

But not me!

And not the customers.

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.