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Videos
Tommy part 1
Tommy part 2
Amazing Journey
We’re Not Gonna Take It
Who Are You
The Kids Are Alright
Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere
Substitute
I Can't Explain
My Generation
Won’t Get Fooled Again
The Real Me
5:15
Love Reign O’er Me
Baba O’Riley
Band intros
Press
Review by Melissa and Gary Hurley
The Sandringham Estate is the Royal Family’s home that they celebrate Christmas in and go to church as a family. The Heritage Live Concerts took the place over the long bank holiday weekend. Friday night was Van Morrison, Saturday and Sunday Robbie Williams and Monday The WHO.
This was the 15th and final gig for The WHO and their touring Heart of England orchestra since Barcelona, Spain on the 14th June. It was originally billed that the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was performing with The WHO. The collectible limited edition poster (150) from Sandringham even had the RPO printed on it!
The Lightning Seeds opened the day’s festivities, followed by Richard Ashcroft and band. He had a great interaction with the audience during his one hour performance, even giving a shout out to one fan who was attending his 235th concert. The crowd was gleefully singing away and knew all the lyrics to his songs.
After Richard Ashcroft and band finished their set there was a mass exodus of his fans from the front of the stage making more room for Who fans to take their rightful spots. This was very similar to the Live Aid concert in 1985 at Wembley Stadium after Queen left the stage and their fans moved back so us WHO fans could stand in the front pit.
The Who came on stage at 8:25. The Tommy set was performed with the orchestra. Unfortunately most of the crowd didn’t know the music and many walked away. They expected the hits? Pete appeared to sing the Acid Queen in the wrong key. Even Roger was puzzled. Pinball Wizard was definitely the highlight for many after 20 minutes into the Tommy set.
Who Are You got the crowd singing for the first time 35 minutes after the band first walked on stage but most non WHO fans started to walk away once again during Eminence Front never to return.
The Who set started with Pete having issues with his IPhone 14 Pro max on stage. He said who’s calling me now? Then he got annoyed that the app on the phone for his hearing aids was programmed for listening to music/audiobooks etc. Finally, Simon his tech corrected this issue. Once again Roger forgot which order the song cycle was supposed to be. Pete was amused with this! Nothing changes? There had been many mistakes made on the tour with various songs, only a true WHO aficionado would pick up on this!
The Classic songs from the 60s were played to great response from the hard core WHO fans both old and new in the crowd, with Pete even making a comment that the oldies are the hardest and most complex to perform on stage!
The orchestra comes back for the usual Quadrophenia set with some excellent guitar playing from both Townshends during The Rock.
Pete once again introduces both orchestral and band members prior to Baba and at the end of the song Roger said to the audience ‘Have a great rest of the year!’
Everyone left the stage quickly as a helicopter was waiting for them to go back to London. It took us over 45 minutes to get out of the car park! And another 30 minutes to travel the 6 miles to our hotel room in Kings Lynn.
Our personal opinion was the show was almost a six on scale 0-10. The band didn’t have a rehearsal and had a five week break since the last gig at the Eden Project on July 25th The show was a little sloppy and rushed at times and the band looked cold (the temperature had dropped to below 50 around 10.30) and tired by the end of the show.
Will this be the end? Only time will tell!
For some videos from this and all the other 14 European 2023 shows go to thegazzas YouTube channel along with some videos from other rock bands including The WHO on the West coast from last October and November.
Review by Derick Bhupsingh
I met friends in Peterborough and drove to the gig and got stuck in some hardly moving traffic for over an hour. Done me head in. Whilst Pete and Rachel and maybe others flew in by helicopter to avoid that mess. Haha!!
Not sure of what the actual attendance was but it was pretty big, certainly as big as maybe the Paris gig, but this was outdoors in a field.
Was not seeing anyone I knew and there was no phone signal so could not contact anyone, though I did bump into Gary Hurley. Anyway, I recon I was right at the back, maybe something like 188th row or more, so after the support bands finished I gradually made my way forward, ending up about 9th or 10th row. Bit of an improvement I'd say.
The set more or less followed the same format as the earlier gigs. With very little banter at the start but made up for by Pete later.
For me the highlight was a fantastic Eminence Front. Halfway through it, despite proclaiming that he gets to sing it, Pete stopped singing at one point and played some blistering guitar instead. Truly amazing!
The other highlight was WGFA. That was perhaps the best song for the night. Zak Starkey was hitting the drums hard, I don't think I've ever seen him play better.
I won't mention the orchestra except to say that the band and them do work very very well together on The Rock.
A couple of things. They continue to leave out that great moment in Sparks, the great big crescendo moment and the gigantic Roar for which this band was once famous for, and for when Pete would adopt the Birdman pose. Why oh why? That my friends used to be one of Rock music's truly great moments !!! Sad.
That's it really. I think all the other gigs on the tour were better than this one. Not to say that this was mediocre. Just that the others were better, especially Paris which remains my favourite.
A bit of humour near the end. Pete said that as part of the whole environmental and green theme of the whole weekend Sandringham event Roger and him were asked to plant two trees, so Pete planted a Lime tree and Roger an Oak tree, so you should stop worrying about climate change cos we've fixed it. !!! Ha ha !
