The Who at London - The O2 Arena

 

The Who Setlist The O2 Arena, London, England 2015, The Who Hits 50!

 

 

Videos

Can't Explain
Substitute
I Can See For Miles
Join Together
Who Are You
Baba O'Riley
Pinball Wizard / See Me Feel Me
Won't Get Fooled Again
Love Reign O'er Me

 

Press

London Evening Standard
The Oxford Student

 

Soundcheck review by Horace Austin

40 minute soundcheck.

Around 150 fans in attendance.

All band present except Roger.

"Slip Kid" (Pete on lead vocals)
"Who Are You" (Pete on lead vocals)

Roger shows up.

"I'm One"

Pete hugs Roger. Audience applause.

Roger: "The secret is out."

Pete: "The secret is that we hug each other once every 4 years." Audience laughter.

"I Can See for Miles"
"Who Are You" again. Guitar assault by Pete.
"You Better You Bet"
"A Quick One While He's Away"

 

Review by Dante DiCarlo

The time had finally arrived for the Who to play the London dates that had been postponed from December 2014. I rushed to the arena after playing a show near by with the Who tribute band I play for and took a seat two thirds of the way from the front. The band came on and launched into I Can't Explain. Like a few of the shows on the tour, the front of house volume was low, you could talk over the band. But still, right from the word go it looked like they were picking up where they left off. For the first few shows of the tour the band had looked a touch less energetic than in previous years, Pete not windmilling as much. Not to complain, this was still very good for guys of 70. Then in the last few shows the energy seemed to go up, Pete getting into it more.

Sunday at the O2, the band came out to put on a show. Roger was in great voice and only seemed to struggle a couple of times towards the end on big numbers like See Me Feel Me and Love Reign O'er Me. Pete windmilled and strutted across the stage and clearly looked like he was having a great time. He expressed his gratitude that there had been very few people who had returned their tickets rather than come to the rescheduled shows.

The set didn't throw up anything new to the tour but was a good selection, keeping many of the songs that fans were so happy to hear after rarely being played over the years. Slip Kid was nice to hear back in the set though Roger fluffed some lines and asked why Pete couldn't write simple songs, to which Pete replied “I'm intellectual” So Sad About Us was played and after several problems with the arrangement last year, it came off smoothly and sounded great.

Pictures Of Lily was introduced by Pete telling the story of how he came to write it after seeing some postcards that his girlfriend owned, he asked the ears of his grandson to be covered so he could properly explain.

Perhaps feeling the shows last year had been a little bit taxing, the set was slightly shortened (down from 2 and a half hours to 2 and a quarter), so no time to honour John and Keith as 5.15 and Bellboy were cut. The show ended with Magic Bus but it seemed a bit of an anti climax after Won't Get Fooled Again. Still a great show to kick things off with.