{"id":120,"date":"2010-02-08T07:24:25","date_gmt":"2010-02-08T07:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/roddreher\/2010\/02\/the-who-embarrassing-geezer-spectacle.html"},"modified":"2010-02-08T07:24:25","modified_gmt":"2010-02-08T07:24:25","slug":"the-who-embarrassing-geezer-spectacle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/02\/the-who-embarrassing-geezer-spectacle.html","title":{"rendered":"The Who: Embarrassing geezer spectacle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was watching the Super Bowl with some co-generationalists, all of whom were eagerly awaiting The Who&#8217;s halftime show. In the end, we all thought it was hugely embarrassing for Townshend and Daltrey. Wheezing your way through a greatest-hits medley? Lord have mercy. It felt like Branson with laser beams, or like a Simpsons parody of geezer rock bombast. Hard to believe these were the same blokes who once sang, &#8220;Hope I die before I get old.&#8221; I assume they were well paid for that little episode, but boy, was it painful to watch. Note to REM and other bands of my generation: <em>never, ever do this. <\/em> I told my son last night, &#8220;They used to be great. They really did.&#8221; For an antidote to last night&#8217;s Metamucil cabaret, watch how they blew the roof off the place at the 2001 Concert for New York. Man! If you don&#8217;t have time to watch this entire performance of &#8220;Baba O&#8217;Riley,&#8221; fast-forward to the 2:00 mark and watch about 35 seconds. It&#8217;ll send chills down your spine:<object width=\"425\" height=\"344\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/cG_uDDEnzC4&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;\"><\/param><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><\/param><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/cG_uDDEnzC4&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" width=\"425\" height=\"344\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was watching the Super Bowl with some co-generationalists, all of whom were eagerly awaiting The Who&#8217;s halftime show. In the end, we all thought it was hugely embarrassing for Townshend and Daltrey. Wheezing your way through a greatest-hits medley? Lord have mercy. It felt like Branson with laser beams, or like a Simpsons parody&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-varia"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Who: Embarrassing geezer spectacle - Rod Dreher<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/02\/the-who-embarrassing-geezer-spectacle.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Who: Embarrassing geezer spectacle - Rod Dreher\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was watching the Super Bowl with some co-generationalists, all of whom were eagerly awaiting The Who&#8217;s halftime show. In the end, we all thought it was hugely embarrassing for Townshend and Daltrey. Wheezing your way through a greatest-hits medley? Lord have mercy. It felt like Branson with laser beams, or like a Simpsons parody&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/02\/the-who-embarrassing-geezer-spectacle.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rod Dreher\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-02-08T07:24:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rod Dreher\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Who: Embarrassing geezer spectacle - Rod Dreher","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/02\/the-who-embarrassing-geezer-spectacle.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Who: Embarrassing geezer spectacle - Rod Dreher","og_description":"I was watching the Super Bowl with some co-generationalists, all of whom were eagerly awaiting The Who&#8217;s halftime show. 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