fortytwo

see me | feel me | touch me | heal me

Is there a dou­ble LP (these were black discs you had to play on a machine cal­led »record player« and than, after 17–20 minu­tes you had to get up and play the other side – please don’t try this with a CD!), I heard more often than The Who — Tommy? Pro­bably not.

The rea­son is quite sim­ple: As descri­bed in the arti­cle Uncle Meat by Frank Zappa, we lear­ned and trans­la­ted the lyrics of that »rock opera« at school in our English les­sons from start to finish. That was some­thing spe­cial in the 70s! Unfor­t­u­na­tely I couldn’t watch The Who in their ori­gi­nal lin­eup (with Keith Moon on the drums, who died 1978). Alter­na­tively, I can recom­mend the album Live at Leeds and lis­ten to the drums (with head pho­nes). Keith Moon was one of the grea­test drum­mer of all times!

When I lived in Bos­ton in 1989, I had the oppor­tu­nity to watch the band live at the Fox­boro Sta­dium when they cele­bra­ted their 25^th anni­versary. In the middle of the con­cert Roger Dalt­rey (sin­ger and micro­phone »thro­wer«) lost his voice and Pete Town­s­hend (the wind­mill) and I believe so John Ent­wistle (who died in 2002) sang the rest of the con­cert. It was still very impres­siv, since — as always at con­certs in the U.S., ever­yone (and I mean ever­yone) sang along with the band. Inclu­ding me – thanks to my English les­sons at the MBO in Berlin-Spandau!

Tommy (Deluxe Edi­tion) — The Who at the iTu­nes Store
Tommy (Ori­gi­nal Sound­track Recor­ding) — Various Artists at the iTu­nes Store