Roger Daltrey
"Use It Or Lose It Tour"
The Commodore
Vancouver, BC
October 10, 2009
** 16 BIT **
Source: SP-CMC-8 cardioids > SP battery box > Edirol R-09 @ 24 bit/48 kHz
Mastering: .WAV > iZotope RX7 Advanced v7.01.315 (De-click) > Sound Forge Pro 14.0 Build 130 [minor edits, normalize, & fades, Boz Digital Labs T-Bone plug-in (slant EQ)] > CDWav
(tracking) > iZotope MBIT+ (dithered and downsampled to 16 bit/44.1 kHz) > Trader's Little Helper (level 5) > FLAC > TagScanner 6.0.35 (tagging)
Recorded by: Chris Bold
Mastered by: Dennis Orr
Setlist: (1:53:08)
01 Crowd
02 Who Are You?
03 Chat
04 Pictures Of Lily
05 Going Mobile
06 A Second Out
07 Tattoo
08 I Can See For Miles
09 Blue Red And Grey
10 Chat
11 Gimme A Stone
12 Freedom Ride
13 Two Thousand Years
14 Squeeze Box
15 Chat
16 Days Of Light (aborted) (1)
17 Chat
18 Days of Light
19 Who's Gonna Walk On Water? (aborted) (2)
20 Young Man Blues
21 Chat
22 I Got Stripes >
23 Ring Of Fire
24 Who's Gonna Walk On Water?
25 Encore Break #1
- Encore #1 -
26 Boris The Spider
27 Baba O'Riley
28 Band Intros (with Happy Birthday for Simon)
29 Encore Break #2
- Encore #2 -
30 Cache Cache
31 The Real Me
32 Crowd
(1) Roger forgot the words about halfway through, stopped the band, and then played the song again.
(2) Roger stopped this song, too, but came back to it later
Roger Daltrey - guitar, harmonica, vocals
Simon Townshend - guitar, vocals
Frank Simes - lead guitar
Loren Gold - keyboards
Jon Button - bass
Scott Devours - drums
Notes:
Opening act - Paper Zoo
First show of the tour
Vancouver Sun review:
GRAEME MCRANOR
For fans of the Who, watching Roger Daltrey perform at the Commodore must be like a Catholic having the Pope say mass in their living room. But at least a few members of the sold-out
faithful weren't showing much forgiveness for indie-rock opening act, Paper Zoo, whose brief set one Daltrey disciple leaning againt the bar described as "possibly the worst shit I've
ever heard." Well, everyone's a critic. The fittingly named Use It or Lose It tour – billed by Daltrey as a vocal warmup for an upcoming Who album and subsequent tour – was a
stripped-down affair that kicked off in Vancouver Saturday night featuring some of his solo work, a few covers and, of course, some crowd-pleasing Who tracks.
The lengthy set, which topped 100 minutes, kicked off with a polite welcome for Daltrey from the crowd and, perhaps not surprisingly, an acoustic/plugged-in hybrid of the Who’s hit,
Who Are You, which probably reminded more than one aging rock fan in the crowd to PVR the tenth season of CSI. Daltrey was accompanied onstage by longtime collaborator, guitarist
Simon Townshend (who was celebrating a birthday); and a solid quartet of American players, including guitarist Frank Simes, bassist Jon Button, keyboardist Loren Gold and drummer
Scott Devours. He gave his pipes somewhat of a break when he slowed things down with A Second Out – from his solo compilation album, Moonlighting – and Tattoo. But he still seemed to
labour somewhat through I Can See for Miles.
Interestingly, it was after that struggle he complained about the sound, calling it “weird”, though he’d already mentioned the echo was “worse than a stadium.” Considering it was the
tour’s leadoff performance, though, Daltrey sounded like he was in decent form, especially on less vocally taxing tracks like 2,000 Years and a decidedly countrified reworking of
Squeeze Box, which the crowd helped out on during the chorus.
Daltrey could’ve used more assistance shortly afterwards. After telling the crowd about the inspiration behind the writing of Days of Light, he then forgot the words about halfway t
hrough, stopped the band and tried again. Of course, no one seemed to mind, since the show had a laidback, informal feel to it. But, when he screwed up the next one too, he wisely
chose to just move on to more memorable fare, which included a decent double-shot of Johnny Cash covers (I Got Stripes and Ring of Fire), an homage to a singer who Daltrey found quite influential as a teenager. Then the guy next to me decided to give me his unsolicited interpretation of the opening act. "Every song they did made me feel like I was having a baby out of my eyeballs," he said. I see.
Back to Daltrey: he also performed Boris the Spider, a song he sang at the memorial for former Who bassist John Entwistle, who wrote and performed the song at the group’s live shows up
until he died in 2002. “For the great bloke that he was,” Daltrey said. Near the end of the main set, Daltrey belted out Baba O’Riley (don’t forget to PVR season six of CSI: New
York!), which got the reasonably mellow crowd riled enough for a serious sing-along during the chorus.
That set the stage for the last song of the main set: A Daltrey-led sing-along of the timeless classic, Happy Birthday, which was dedicated to band-mate Simon Townshend. Brother Pete
was certainly missed. Still, on this night, fans certainly got their fix. Even if it proved that, while you can take Daltrey out of the Who, you can’t take the Who out of Daltrey.