The Who Made My Dream Come True

Last night at Van Andel Arena was and always will be one of the greatest concert experiences of my life.  This is quite a statement on my part having been in radio almost 40 years.  Let me try and put this into perspective.  In 1969 I bought the first album with my own money.  It was The Who's "Tommy".  I got it at Montgomery Ward probably because I really liked the song "Pinball Wizard".  However, when I listened to the album over and over, "Pinball Wizard" became one of my least favorite of the collection.  To this day, it's still one of my favorite albums.

I've seen The Who live 3 times.  The first time was at Van Andel in 2002 (Robert Plant opened and we got to meet him backstage) which was one of the greatest concerts we've ever seen.  The 2nd time was a few years later at the Palace when The Who toured "Quadrophenia".  I've never been a huge fan of that album so it wasn't as memorable.  I can remember thinking then that I wished I could've seen them when they toured "Tommy".

And then last night.  Here's what I knew going in.  This was the first show of the tour and there was a full orchestra which made me think how cool it would be if they did some songs from "Tommy" besides "Pinball Wizard".  Well, my dream finally came true.  They opened with "Overture" and then proceeded to play "Pinball Wizard", "The Acid Queen", "See Me, Hear Me", "Welcome", and "We're Not Gonna Take It".  At the conclusion Pete Townsend exclaimed: "We Just Played Fucking Tommy!"  That was all I needed but enjoyed much more the rest of the night.