No Honor Among Cover Bands
By Mitch Berg
Long ago – thirty years ago, for crying out loud – The Who was my favorite band. They’re still right up there. While I tired of some of Pete Townsend’s mid-career dramatics, Who’s Next is right up there with Darkness on the Edge of Town among my three favorite albums in rock and roll history, and The Who Sell Out and Quadrophenia are on my top forty.
So yes. As a matter of fact, I’m a bit of a Who afficionado. Which mean, of course, that I turn a gimlet-y eye toward Who covers.
So VH1 has been broadcasting “Rock Honors – The Who“. It was actually a bit disorienting – actually seeing music on VH1 – but I digress.
I’d never seen “Rock Honors”, but it’s apparently the musical equivalent of a Friar’s Roast, only with music instead of blue humor.
The highlight of the evening was “The Who” – well, Pete Townsend and Roger Daltrey, at any event – doing some of their biggest hits.
That was fun. More later.
The most interesting part, to me anyway, was the “tribute” covers. Hearing them, it was hard to miss…
…how few singers are fit to carry Roger Daltrey’s gig bag.
- Foo Fighters, “Young Man Blues” and “Bargain”: Dave Grohl is just about the most talented guy in music today. And picking Young Man Blues was a choice that’ll gladden any Who freak’s heart; the song, a cover of an obscure Mose Allison song that appeared on the classic Live at Leeds album, smoked. They squandered a bit of goodwill, though, bringing Gaz Coombes of the Brit alt-rock band “Supergrass” up to sing lead on “Bargain”, one of Who’s Next‘s best songs and one of my favorite Who songs ever. The Foos rocked, but Coombes – who, let’s just say, has “opportunities” as a singer – could have been replaced by the top half of singers at a decent karaoke joint and nobody would have known better. Disappointing. Three and a half smashed Hiwatt amps (docked half a point for Coombes’ “contribution”).
- Incubus, “I Can See For Miles” and “I Can’t Explain”: Serviceable but uninspired. Which, with “I Can’t Explain” – a song that every band in the world has covered at least once – is pretty much the norm. But with “I Can See For Miles”, one of the five best songs of the British Invasion? It’ll take a good lawyer to get pled down to misdemeanor. Three smashed Hiwatt amps.
- Flaming Lips, “Amazing Journey” and “Pinball Wizard”: I dunno – the Lips are an off-and-on thing for me. All I do know is that it’d have been cool if they’d have found a song or two that fit into Wayne Coyne’s eight note range. Even Bun thought it was weak, weak, weak. One and a half smashed Hiwatt amps.
- Pearl Jam, “Love Reign O’er Me” and “The Real Me”: On the other hand, Eddie Vedder sticks two of Daltrey’s most challenging parts; the soaring “Love Reign O’er Me” and the meatgrinder “The Real Me” from Quadrophenia. And they were just freaking amazing, going for a note-for-note cover on “Love” (complete with full orchestra on the string part), while opting to try to out-loud the Who on “The Real Me”. And dayum, it was good. Four and a half smashed Hiwatt amps.
- Tenacious D, “Squeeze Box” and something else, I think, because while Jack Black can be a really good actor, the whole “Tenacious D” joke wore thin on me ten years ago, and I went to answer the phone in mid-“Squeeze Box” (probably my least-favorite Who single while Keith Moon was still alive). Two smashed Hiwatt amps, if only because even though I’ve long tired of TD, they did the voodoo they do pretty serviceably, even though it bored me too stiff to watch all the way through.
That is all.
July 22nd, 2008 at 6:35 am
Angryclown is more of a Stones and Kinks partisan, when the subject turns to paleorock. But the Who are not far behind. Angryclown saw them at Shea in 1983. The band’s “farewell tour.”
July 22nd, 2008 at 6:37 am
Heh. I saw that same tour, in ’82 at the St. Paul Civic.
With ya on the Kinks. Oddly, I’m just now starting to get more into the Stones.
July 22nd, 2008 at 6:45 am
Ridiculous traffic prevented me from seeing the opening acts, Jorma Kaukonen and, uh, the Clash. Kinda wish I’d seen that band just once.
July 22nd, 2008 at 6:50 am
A friend (and occasional reader of this blog) and I drove in from Fargo in time to catch T-Bone Burnett, with the legendary Mick Ronson sitting in on guitar. A really, really great opener.
The Clash woulda sufficed.
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:28 am
Come to think of it, that show musta been in ’82.
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:50 am
Ha! I saw 2, yes TWO the Who farewell, absolutely last, never again concerts. One at the Ex and one at the MLG, the one that was televised. In some respects, it paid to live in T.O. 😉
Oh, and it did not pay to open for The Who. Granted it was a bit of a mismatch, but poor Joe Jackson – he was pummeled by beer bottles.
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:32 am
Loved the Foo Fighters – I was in bed with a raging, room spinning, headache, but I sat up to catch that. Foo Fighters – closest “big act” to rock & roll today. Gaz Coombes – meh… no passion, just puttin’ on a show, so I just listened to the musicianship from the Foos
Pearl Jam – it was a good set, and I can listen to them, but they just, I dunno, bug me. They too seem to be ‘acting’ in most of their performances. Maybe in the setting of a full concert it could be different, but their two songs sets always leave me feeling cheated.
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:48 am
I caught some of that show on VH1. I was surprised that Pearl Jam sounded as good as they did. Hadn’t heard them in a long time and it was actually nice to do so. They’re one of those bands I tend to forget about until one of their tunes comes on the radio.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:04 am
JPA,
Oh, and it did not pay to open for The Who
T-Bone Burnett met some resistance when he first started, but by the end of the set he had the crowd pretty well won over.
As re Pearl Jam; there’s no in between with them for me. I love what they do (maybe 10%) or wish I were elsewhere (the rest of the time).
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:31 am
I read a good bio of the Who. They tried to do Quadrophenia live, but decided it was a nightmare to perform. They went back to the Who’s Next material after a couple of shows.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:44 am
Coolest thing Roger Daltry ever did (besides the Who): he played the immortal Hugh Fitzcairn in the Highlander TV series in the early 1990’s. That was cool.
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:02 am
I saw maybe ten episodes of that Highlander series (kinda fun late-night grazing, after Blind Date was over), and I think i caught his last few, including the one where he (IIRC) died.
I read a good bio of the Who
Dave Marsh wrote Before I Get Old, which was pretty much the essential who bio. Marsh is a good critic, when he steers clear of politics (which is rarely) – or at least his taste in music and mine are very similar (he also wrote Born to Run and Glory Days, the definitive Springsteen bios).
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Mitch reads Rock bio’s?
Zappa famously said:
Rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.
I stopped watching VH1 years ago, when I realized that most of the people I admired as great rockers in the 70’s & 80’s weren’t that bright. They caught a wave and they rode it. With a few exceptions the real geniuses were the producers and the agents. These days when I hear some drug-addled ex-rocker whine about being ripped off by their manager or the record company I tend to look into the distance and smile.
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:25 am
Of course you do, Terry. Cause you just can’t help identifying with The Man.
October 25th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
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