Photos and Review by Ilya Mirman
Galleries: The Who, The Joe Perry Project
Boston has always been proud of two things: baseball and noise. On Tuesday night at Fenway Park, the baseball diamond gave itself up entirely to noise—the holy kind made by guitars, drums, and voices that refuse to crack or fade. The air was warm and restless, the lights bright, and it didn’t matter. People weren’t there for comfort. They were there to remember, to be shaken, maybe even to believe again. On the marquee it said The Who with the Joe Perry Project. What it meant was: one of the greatest bands that ever lived would share a night with one of the men who once carried Boston rock on his back.
Joe Perry came out first, flanked by Brad Whitford, Robert DeLeo, Chris Robinson, Buck Johnson, and Jason Sutter. They opened with “Let the Music Do the Talking,” which was less a song than a thesis statement. And the music did talk, very loudly, in a language everyone seemed to remember. Robinson sang like he was being paid in cigarettes and whiskey. They followed with “East Coast, West Coast” and “Twice as Hard,” Robinson growling each line like a man trying to wring poetry out of asphalt.
The set rolled on: “Combination” and “Vasoline,” Perry’s guitar was a bird with its head cut off, flying anyway; “Get It Up” sounding like a challenge hurled into the sky; “Last Child” pulling the crowd back into Boston’s Aerosmith youth. “Chip Away the Stone” was rough and unpolished, like it had been waiting decades for another hearing. Perry and Whitford’s 50-year telepathy blazed through every note. People screamed as if the past had just called them on the telephone. And then came the inevitable pair, “Walk This Way” and “The Train Kept A-Rollin’.” By the end, the field itself seemed to hum. The opening act had felt less like an appetizer and more like a storm.
And then The Who. Roger Daltrey is 81. Pete Townshend is 80. Numbers that often mean quiet evenings and reading glasses. But instead they meant thunder. They stepped into the lights and tore into “I Can’t Explain,” and there was nothing frail about it. “Substitute,” “Who Are You,” “The Seeker,” “Love Ain’t for Keeping,” “You Better You Bet”—each one thrown out like a defiant shout against gravity itself.
Townshend’s right arm still windmilled as if it could power the grid. Together they marched through “Going Mobile,” “The Real Me,” “I’m One,” “5:15,” and a wrenching “Love, Reign O’er Me.” For a few minutes, the years fell away.
The final stretch was almost cruel in how many memories it ripped open: “Eminence Front,” “Pinball Wizard,” “See Me, Feel Me,” “Baba O’Riley,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” Each note older than many of the people singing along, but still sharp, still bright, still dangerous. The crowd howled the words back as if to prove they still remembered who they had been when these songs first mattered.
And then it was over. Not with an explosion, but with a whisper: “Tea & Theatre.” Two old men, side by side, singing about endings as if they could make peace with the idea. The stadium grew quiet. The song landed like a sigh.
The lights went dark, and Fenway became a ballpark again. People filed out into the Boston night, carrying fragments of the music like glowing embers. For two hours they had lived inside a world where noise was a kind of salvation, and the end of things could be postponed. That is the trick music plays, and it is a beautiful one.