Leonard Cohen at Madison Square Garden: Concert Review

I want to be Leonard Cohen when I grow up.

After many years in hibernation, the endlessly cool 78-year-old singer-songwriter has returned to his career with a vengeance — perhaps literally so, since it was prompted by the embezzlement of his life’s savings by his former business manager. Since 2008 he’s been touring the world, playing arenas to capacity crowds and delivering shows that have been the best-received of his entire career. And the release this year of his latest CD, Old Ideas, demonstrates that he’s still -- to quote one of his best-known compositions — atop the tower of song.

At Madison Square Garden Tuesday night, Cohen delivered on the declaration he uttered early in the evening.

“I don’t know when we’ll meet again, but I promise that tonight we’ll give you everything we’ve got,” he said.

And that he did, along with a superb six-piece band and a trio of back-up singers that included the sublime Webb Sisters (Charley and Hattie) and his longtime songwriting collaborator Sharon Robinson. Performing for 3 1/2 hours including intermission, he delivered a career-defining show that included numerous selections from the new release.

The tropes of his performance style are by now familiar, but no less comforting. The spry septuagenarian, clad in his trademark dark suit and fedora, belies his age by literally skipping on and off the stage. He delivers many of his vocals either crouched in intense fashion or literally on his knees, and his ability to rise to his feet effortlessly even while singing provides a testament to whatever health regimen he’s on.

Far from his amusing self-description in his new song “Going Home” as “a lazy bastard living in a suit,” the performer invests his performance with a searing intensity that takes on almost religious overtones. Even in this cavernous arena, he held the audience spellbound throughout the lengthy evening, no more so when he quietly recites his poem “A Thousand Kisses Deep.”

His demeanor is ever courtly, profusely thanking the audience several times for their attention and repeatedly introducing not only his musicians and singers but everyone down to the sound mixer and the guy who rigged the curtain. During his band member’s numerous solos, he frequently took off his hat and sat by their feet, as if in supplication.

And it was well deserved, as the multi-national musicians enhanced songs both new and familiar with gorgeous instrumental flourishes, from Alexandru Bublitchi’s beautiful violin work to Neil Larsen’s bluesy keyboards to Javier Mas’ virtuoso playing of a variety of string instruments including the oud. The music touched on many genres — folk, rock, gypsy, blues, jazz, gospel, flamenco, waltz — with effortless grace.

Highlights are too numerous to mention. Casual fans were rewarded with stirring versions of such classics as “Suzanne,” “Bird on a Wire,” “Everybody Knows,” “I’m Your Man,”  “Take This Waltz,” “Famous Blue Raincoat” and, of course, the now ubiquitous “Hallelujah.”  But he also dug deep into the archives with such songs as “Who by Fire,” “Lover Lover Lover” and “Chelsea Hotel #2” as well as showcasing such new compositions as “Show Me the Place,” “Amen” and the rocking “Darkness.”

The latter prompted one of the evening’s most amusing moments, as he followed it with the mock admission that “I look in the mirror and I say, Lighten up, Leonard,” before launching into “Ain’t No Cure for Love.” Later, after receiving an ovation for his twinkly keyboard playing on “Tower of Song,” he asked, “Is this charity for the elderly?”

He generously gave the spotlight to Robinson, who handled the lead vocal on “Alexandra Leaving,” and the Webb Sisters, who delivered the penultimate number, “If It Be Your Will.”

The marathon evening ended shortly before midnight with the inevitable “Closing Time.”

“It’s hell to pay when the fiddler stops, it’s closing time,” he sang in his trademark rumbling baritone. For his sake as well as ours, let’s hope that doesn’t come anytime soon.

Set List:

Dance Me to the End of Love

The Future

Bird on a Wire

Everybody Knows

Who by Fire

Darkness

Ain’t No Cure for Love

Amen

Come Healing

In My Secret Life

A Thousand Kisses Deep (recitation)

Anthem

Tower of Song

Suzanne

Chelsea Hotel #2

Waiting for the Miracle

Show Me the Place

Lover Lover Lover

Democracy

Alexandra Leaving (Sharon Robinson)

I’m Your Man

Hallelujah

Take This Waltz

So Long Marianne

Going Home

First We Take Manhattan

Famous Blue Raincoat

If It Be Your Will (the Webb sisters)

Closing Time

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No Doubt Push, Shove, Shout and Let it All Out at SoCal Show: Concert Review

Yes, No Doubt has been a band since 1986, but even the most hardened of road warriors would be putting their performing chops and stage stamina to the test with a seven-night run at L.A.'s Gibson Amphitheatre. The fact that the band hasn't had a new album in over a decade? A disadvantage to most, but not this four-piece fronted by Gwen Stefani.

In fact, she was more worried about the Friday night crowd's resilience, and midway through their scheduled performances, having previously played shows on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday, Stefani acknowledged the turnout with a thank you: "You've been working all week, you're exhausted, and you still f---ing came to see us," she said to rapturous applause from the 6,000-plus audience members.

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While the back of the house happily sang along with beers in hand, engaging mostly in the band's biggest hits "Just a Girl," "Don't Speak," "Hella Good," "Ex-Girlfriend" and "Settle Down," it was the pit that was filled with superfans. Among them: a man with Stefani's face tattooed on his arms, a woman desperately hoping for a Stefani-designed wedding gown, devotees sporting hand-made signs, and a 20-something who was invited on stage to display her sign that read, "I've been listening to No Doubt for 17 years."

By our count, that puts her right around the Tragic Kingdom and Beacon Street era, but not quite at the ultimate fan status of their 1992 self-titled debut. Nonetheless, Stefani was impressed with the fan's commitment and invited her up on stage to "make out or something" during the encore. Alas, they did not lock lips, but there were several hugs and bassist Tony Kanal stepped in to snap an iPhone photo of the duo in front of the audience. Talk about a show memento.

Opening about 20 minutes behind schedule, Stefani hit the stage with the energy of a pop star have her age, jumping around in a sparkly silver romper and a long black jacket, paired, of course, with black lace-up boots and fishnet stockings. The 43-year-old mother of two hardly looked the part of parent, exhibiting her royal rock highness status on "Push and Shove," "It's My Life" and "Hella Good." As Kanal strived to keep up with Stefani's energy (decades after ending their relationship, the two still clearly have chemistry -- frequently dancing together and getting lost in the music), Stefani shows no signs of slowing down and miraculously manages to hold on to her breath control in the process. Unlike many live shows, however, the stage went completely dark between songs with an audible pause. The mini-breaks did not result in any set changes, so one can only assume they were there to allow Stefani a quick recovery before whirling back on stage.

"I'm getting such a good vibe tonight," Stefani mused after "Ex-Girlfriend," one of the night's most well-received hits, in which the entire auditorium -- loud and without hesitation -- finished the track with a rousing "But I shoulda thought of that before we kissed."

Things did slow down for the regga-rific "Underneath It All," featuring a trumpet solo from Stephen Bradley, the acoustic "Hey You" and the ballad "Simple Kind of Life," clearly penned prior to Stefani's marriage to Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale and the subsequent birth of their two children. As she crooned "I always thought I'd be a mom," a smile crept to Stefani's lips and the crowd went wild. Watching her on stage, it's puzzling to connect Gwen Stefani the superstar with Gwen Stefani the mom -- a sensation probably not unfamiliar to her two sons.

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Those who were new to the No Doubt concert experience may have been surprised at the presence of trumpeter Bradley and trombonist Gabrial McNair, who also aided Stefani on vocals. The duo are rarely included in the band's promotional materials, but have been touring with the band since the mid-1990s.

Among the most visually performances: "One More Summer" and "Sunday Morning." While tonally different, each song included a backdrop of what looked like personal home footage. On "Summer," it was video of a family at the beach circa the 1970s and on "Sunday," there was staged footage from inside Kanal, Tom Dumont, Adrian Young and Stefani's respective homes. Each donning white robes, the video chronicles their routines on -- you guessed it -- Sunday mornings, in which they read the paper, drink coffee and play with their kids.

The group reached a crescendo with the song that made No Doubt famous: "Just a Girl." It came just before the encore and Stefani held nothing back. Indeed, when she needed more, the power singer challenged the audience to chant along until her ears bled. Naturally, she then instructed all the men in the audience to sing along with the chorus and then later teased that the women would put them to shame. They did.

By the time the encore came around, it seemed there was little left to be played. Their current single, "Looking Hot," of course, but what else? Changing from her romper into something straight out of her '90s closet (a sparkly red crop top and billowy red pants with sneakers), Stefani put her rock-hard abs on display and looked, well, hot.

They next launched into "Total Hate," which was selected as a fan request online. "I thought this song was retired, but apparently not," Stefani said as she introduced it. And before taking their final bow, No Doubt kicked things back up a notch with "Spiderwebs." At the end of it all, they made a less-than-dramatic exit from the stage, instead opting to stay and sign autographs for fans lucky enough to nab front row seats. After a few minutes of hand-shaking and high-fiving, they waved goodbye and calmly made their way backstage as the audience, equally well-behaved, exited the Gibson.

If No Doubt has mellowed, it seems unavoidable that their fanbase has, too. But for one night (or seven), all were transported back to the glory of the '90s. If nothing else, the performance proved that while the Push and Shove-era will still please loyal fans, it's the old classics that just might be impossible to top.

Set List:

Push and Shove
It's My Life
Hella Good
Underneath It All
Ex-Girlfriend
Hey Baby
New

Acoustic Set
Hey You
Sparkle
Simple Kind of Life
One More Summer

Sunday Morning
Bathwater
Settle Down
Don't Speak
Just a Girl

Encore
Guns of Navarone (The Skatalites cover)
Looking Hot
Total Hate (Fan Request)
Spiderwebs

Email: Sophie.Schillaci@thr.com; Twitter: @SophieSchillaci

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Grace Jones Brings Fierceness, High Fashion to Pre-Hurricane New York City: Concert Review

Grace Jones on Saturday at the Roseland Ballroom in New York

The veteran performer keeps it tight with her avant-garde music, out-of-this-world style and a Hula Hoop.

Roseland Ballroom,
New York City
(Saturday, Oct. 27)

As the Tri-State area braced for the onslaught of Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Grace made landfall Saturday night at the historic Roseland Ballroom in New York City. The 64 year-old singer stormed the stage in wrap-up stilettos and dazzled the sold-out crowd for two solid hours with a hits-heavy set that featured a different costume for every song.

Her only U.S. appearance this year, the show was a one-of-a-kind event conceived by U.K. milliner Philip Treacy to feature the singer (and former model) in outfits by designers Issey Miyake, Jean Paul Gaultier and Alexander McQueen. Jones stayed in a black corset with thong, fishnets and heels the entire evening and spent the night accenting this with her various changes offstage, though she never made clear which designer she was wearing (most of the hats probably were Treacy, and one or two of the more unusual pieces probably Gaultier). Her fans dressed up, too: Holding the concert on the Saturday before Halloween only sealed the deal as the room looked like it was packed with extras from Party Monster and Paris Is Burning.

Fronting a six-piece band and two backup singers, Jones took the stage in near darkness and opened with “Nightclubbing.” The woman is in phenomenal shape and appears downright ageless. As she stood on a riser above the stage in an outfit that lit up, her sultry take on the David Bowie/Iggy Pop song set the mood for the evening as she sang, “Oh, isn’t it wild?”

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Jones moved off stage for the first of her 15 costume changes while the lights dimmed, though she held on to her microphone and addressed the crowd: “Welcome! I love you already!” The singer was brightly convivial all night, and surprisingly coarse. At one point, she announced, “Oh my God, I need to suck a dick!” Her salaciousness fit with her leering, preening manner, and the audience ate it up.

Jones returned to sing “This Is Life” from her most recent album, 2009’s Hurricane, and followed it with “My Jamaican Guy” and her cover of Pretenders’ “Private Life.” Whether she’s singing or talk-singing, Jones was in excellent voice all night. One of the many highlights of her set was the costume she wore for her take on The Police’s “Demolition Man,” which featured the singer with a shining metal hat and carrying two cymbals, which she crashed to great effect. “I keep it tight,” she said with a laugh.

Jones’ music ranges from avant-garde disco and new wave to reggae, funk and pop. Emerging from the darkness in gold sequined top hat and tails, she asked for a glass of wine; when she began speaking in French it became obvious what song was up next: her lilting light-jazz rendition of “La Vie en Rose,” one of her biggest hits. However, when the song began playing, she stepped on a revolving turntable, started joking with the crowd and missed her cue. She continued, though she admitted her mistake, which only served to unravel her and leave her and the crowd laughing.

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Jones featured two more tracks from Hurricane (“Well Well Well,” “Williams’ Blood”) before returning to classics like “Warm Leatherette” and her cover of Roxy Music’s “Love Is the Drug.” Her costume for “Pull Up to the Bumper” was a riding crop and a horse tail, fixed at her lower back. She pulled a young man out of the audience and danced with him onstage; after the song, she made him take off his shirt and flirted with him mercilessly.

Jones seemed to be having as much fun as the crowd, drinking wine, making lewd comments and at times even yelling at the spotlight operators: “I’m over here; no one’s over there!” When she sang, her voice was powerful, and when she wasn’t singing, she was dancing. And, as she famously did at Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee concert in June, the singer emerged from the shadows at the end of her set carrying a Hula Hoop. Jones then called in “Slave to the Rhythm” and proceeded to hula for the entire song, while singing in a thong and heels.

Jones returned for an encore of the aptly chosen “Hurricane.” She appeared in an Issey Miyake parachute wrap and stood in front of a fan that blew the fabric well behind her as she clutched a pole. The song finished, Jones left without saying a word. She is a tremendous performer, and at an age when many people are thinking about retirement, she looks and sounds far from it. Like a hurricane, Grace Jones packs a wallop.

Set List:

Nightclubbing
This Is Life
My Jamaican Guy
Private Life
Demolition Man
I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango)
La Vie en Rose
Well Well Well
Williams' Blood
Warm Leatherette
Love Is the Drug
Pull Up to the Bumper
Feel Up
Slave to the Rhythm
Encore:
Hurricane

Twitter: @THRMusic

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Brad Paisley Turns Hollywood Bowl Into His Own Paisley Park: Concert Review

Wrapping up a 10-month tour, the musician captivated a packed crowd as a guitar hero, humorist, country boundary-expander and all-around musical multi-threat.

Hollywood Bowl
(Saturday, Oct. 20)

If you’re looking at the intersection between guitar heroes and currently popular hitmakers, you’re pretty much looking at an intersection of one. Brad Paisley brought that all-too-rare combination to the intersection of Highland and the Hollywood Freeway on Saturday night, where the Hollywood Bowl was packed out for country music’s best superstar standard-bearer. There was plenty of hillbilly horseplay, hooks about fishing hooks and enough Stratocaster mastery to make Mark Knopfler (who performs at the Bowl this coming weekend) feel afraid, very afraid.

Midway through the show, Paisley soloed at length on “Then” while strolling through the crowd up to a platform halfway back in the Bowl. His ability to stay in such lockstep with his band while improvising impressively and going farther afield than the Bowl’s follow spots could track was a testament not just to his talent but the reliability of modern in-ear technology. The steepness of the Bowl’s hillside seemed to impress him as, waxing slightly winded, Paisley admitted he was “feeling the altitude” once he got up to that secondary stage.

Perhaps he also was feeling the 10 months he’s been out on the road with opening acts The Band Perry and Scotty McCreery. Saturday night marked the end of that nearly year-long North American trek, but aside from that suggestion of panting, no one seemed the worse for wear at this tour-closer, least of all the eternally good-humored headliner -- who next will be seen as co-host of the CMA Awards on Nov. 1 before heading out to take his "American Saturday Nights" overseas for a spell.

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His 21-song, nearly two-hour set kicked off with “The World,” which remains an important song in his catalog: When that 2006 romantic barnburner topped the country chart, it marked the moment when it became clear that country radio would really let Brad be Brad, in all his fullness -- which is to say, embrace a tune that featured his Fender bending notes around virtually every line in the song, without waiting for the obligatory soloing break after the second chorus. Plenty of other subsequent hits played Saturday, all the way to the closing encore of “Alcohol,” followed in that tradition, with Paisley deliriously filling in every would-be lyrical pause in a style that owes equal amounts to Buck Owens’ guitarist Don Rich, Eddie Van Halen and, yep, Knopfler.

Paisley has a way of embracing both cockiness and humility on stage without ever having those qualities seem self-contradictory. Essentially, he’s showing off without seeming to be trying too hard to show off, which is a good persona if you can get it.

Paisley’s serious and silly sides both flew at full mast. On the sober side, there was “Welcome to the Future,” an age-of-miracles-and-wonder anthem that can make even a recession-plagued, news-bedraggled attendee remember that the world of 2012 is, in many ways, a pretty cool place.

His current single, “Southern Comfort Zone” (presaging an album due in April), is equally inspiring and brilliant. It arrives thinly disguised as yet another country song cataloguing everything that is superior about the land of Dixie, when what it really is is an anthem of anti-xenophobia and openness to all that the wide world has to offer -- while, sure, remembering to catalog a few things that are superior about the land of Dixie.

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But equally valuable in Paisley’s canon are his singular revivals of country’s great comic novelty-song tradition, which started early in the set with “Ticks,” which he altered to involve a woman having a Dodgers tattoo in the small of her back. He advised the people back in the grassy section to check each other for ticks, too, and you could forgive the Hollywood Bowl first-timer for not knowing he was playing an amphitheater with no lawn seating (assuming he didn’t mean the “tree people” who traditionally listen to, if not necessarily see, every Bowl show).

His truly soberest song, “Whiskey Lullaby,” was sung as a duet with opener Kimberly Perry replacing the recording’s Alison Krauss (after Paisley sang a snippet of The Band Perry’s “If I Die Young”). This testament to untimely death was followed immediately in whiplash fashion by “Warp Speed,” arguably the funniest song of the night in spite of being an instrumental, just by virtue of how Paisley and his band turning speed-picking into an extreme sport provokes admiring laughter.

Paisley used to sing a half-live, half-recorded duet onstage every night with a giant video image of Krauss on “Whiskey Lullaby.” Now that spot in the show has been taken with his nightly live-and-Memorex duet with an absent Carrie Underwood on “Remind Me.” In this instance, it’s made better or worse, depending on your thinking, by the fact that Paisley has designed it as a magic trick, in which the digital Carrie is life-sized, and she really does appear, at least from the 20th row or so back, to be standing in the rear next to the drum riser. The complicating factor is that (almost) everybody realizes a verse or so in that she’s not really in attendance, after initially rising to their feet for the superstar “guest.” Deflating the crowd midsong is always a risky gambit, but Paisley is such a tech nerd -- as he proves with other elements of his stage design and self-made LED screen animation -- that you can kind of allow him the glee that went into creating this illusion.

Paisley has a way of embracing both cockiness and humility onstage without ever having those qualities seem self-contradictory. Essentially, he’s showing off without seeming to be trying too hard to show off, which is a good persona if you can get it. There was a moment in the final encore of “Alcohol” that embodied that pretty well, and it wasn’t even the moment when a woman emerged from the wings and handed him a beer bottle with which to play a bottleneck guitar solo. It came a minute later, when he was out on the ramp into the audience and quickly bent over to autograph a couple of photos with his right hand while continuing to solo on the fretboard with his left. Entertainers should all be such effortless multitaskers.

Set list:

The World
Welcome to the Future
Ticks
This Is Country Music
Waitin’ on a Woman
Celebrity
I’m Still a Guy (incl. Good Hearted Woman)
She’s Everything
Online
Southern Comfort Zone
Then
Letter to Me
Mud on the Tires
Whiskey Lullaby (inc. If I Die Young)
Warp Speed
I’m Gonna Miss Her (The Fishing Song)
Remind Me
Old Alabama
Water

Encore:
American Saturday Night
Alcohol

Twitter: @chriswillman

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Justin Bieber Touches Down in Los Angeles With Out-Of-This-World Show: Concert Review

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Melissa Etheridge in New York City: Concert Review

The singer delivers a powerhouse, nearly 2 1/2 hour show that shows off her thrilling vocals and dynamic guitar playing.

Melissa Etheridge

Melissa Etheridge has always poured her heart and soul into her music, so it’s no surprise that the same depth of emotion permeates her shows. Playing for nearly 2 1/2 hours at Manhattan’s Hammerstein Ballroom on Wednesday, the performer made the evening as much of a therapy session as a concert.

Having been on the scene for a quarter of a century, she qualifies as one of rock’s elder, or at least middle-aged, stateswomen, and she makes no bones about it. “I’m 51 and I’m loving it!” she cried at one point, in an example of the Oprah-like confessionals strewn throughout the evening.

She’s touring to support her latest CD, 4th Street Feeling, which features a heavier blending of soul, country and blues influences than usual for her. She performed the vast majority of it during the show, which also included such fan favorites as “I Want to Come Over,” “Bring Me Some Water,” “I’m the Only One” and “Like the Way I Do.”

It’s a strictly no-frills affair, with the singer backed by a terrific four-piece band that at times seemed superfluous, considering that she frequently put down her guitar to play accordion, keyboards, piano and, for “Bring Me Some Water,” even the drums.

Her powerhouse vocals so reminiscent of Janis Joplin have only seemed to have gotten stronger with age, and her guitar playing has taken on a harder, aggressive edge that she seemed eager to show off via numerous extended solos.

She frequently punctuated her songs with lengthy narrative asides which made them feel even more personal. When the crowd cheered during her extended version of “I Want to Come Over,” she confessed, “I’m glad I’m not alone in my misery.” And after another typically relationship-centric number, she wryly commented, “Oh yeah, like you’re gonna take relationship advice from me.”

But it was her introduction to “I Run for Life,” inspired about her well-publicized battle with breast cancer, that garnered the most powerful response of the evening. “I wrestled with that beast called cancer,” she said, before triumphantly adding, “I can now tell you I’m now nine years cancer free!” She proceeded to deliver a deeply emotional rendition of the song that exemplified this durable rocker’s indomitable spirit.

Set List: 

Shout Now
Falling Up
I Want To Come Over
Kansas City
4th Street Feeling
Chrome Plated Heart
Shadow Of A Black Crow
Be Real
Enough of Me
A Sacred Heart
Your Little Secret
A Disaster
I Can Wait
I Run For Life
Rock & Roll Me
I'm The Only One
Bring Me Some Water

Encore:
Like The Way I Do

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The Who at Barclays Center: Concert Review

Daltrey and Townshend and the reconstituted Who deliver the goods in this show devoted to "Quadrophenia" featuring state-of-the-art video projections and generous doses of nostaglia.

Barclays Center, Brooklyn
(Wednesday, Nov. 14)

It’s easy to tell when Roger Daltrey is about to sing one of the more iconic songs from the Who catalog such as like “Love, Reign O’er Me” or “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” He unbuttons his shirt to the waist, revealing an impossibly toned torso for a 68-year-old man. The gesture, as much as his still-powerful voice, signifies that this legendary band is still able to rock.

Performing at Brooklyn’s Barclay Center as part of its Quadrophenia tour, Daltrey and his fellow surviving bandmate Pete Townshend delivered a musically impeccable rendition of that entire 1973 classic rock opera/concept album, followed by a crowd-pleasing if too-brief selection of their biggest hits.

They’ve toured with this material before, back in 1996 and 1997, but this version was technically superior, boasting state-of-the-art video projections on multiple screens that enhanced the song cycle with images referencing its seaside-set coming-of-age storyline (lots of waves crashing on the shore) as well as a virtual photographic world history of the past 70 years. Featuring scenes ranging from the London Blitz to the present, it also included generous amounts of archival footage of the band in its prime, adding a genuine poignancy to the sight of its two main players who are now near-septuagenarians.

Not that their age seemed to matter. Daltrey’s voice sounded stronger than it has in years, as he displayed no visible vocal strain during the two-and-a-quarter-hour show or unveiling his massive roars on “Love” and “Fooled.” Townshend’s slashing guitar work was as exemplary as ever, and he infused his vocals on such songs as “I’ve Had Enough” with a moving world-weariness. Both performers reprised their signature moves -- Daltrey twirling his microphone and Townshend waving his arms windmill-style during power chords -- with enough frequency to garner cheers without launching into self-parody.

They were supported by their usual excellent band: Zak Starkey on drums, Pino Palladino on bass and Pete’s brother Simon Townshend on guitar, as well as John Corey, Frank Simes and Loren Gold on keyboards and a two-man horn section.

“You know that we could have carried around a few hundred more musicians and it would have sounded roughly the same,” Pete half-joked.

But the ironic highlights of the show came from the deceased band members, thanks to beautifully integrated video footage of John Entwistle delivering a mind-blowing bass solo on “5:15” and Keith Moon raucously singing the lead vocal on “Bell Boy.” The response from the crowd was rapturous.

After a straight run-through of the entire song list from Quadrophenia performed without a break, the band satisfied the demands of the audience with a mini-set featuring “Who Are You,” “Behind Blue Eyes,” “Pinball Wizard,” “Baba O’Riley” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” all delivered with galvanizing power. Townshend was in particularly playful form during this segment, following his intricate guitar solo on “Who Are You” with the mock whispered pronouncement, “Jazz,” and he put particular dramatic emphasis on the lyric “Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss.”

They took time to sing the praises of the new Brooklyn arena -- “We didn’t come on the subway,” Townshend humorously pointed out -- and made frequent sympathetic references to the victims of Hurricane Sandy.

At show’s end, the two Who originals remained alone onstage to deliver a sweetly moving acoustic version of “Tea & Theatre,” the elegiac song from their 2006 album Endless Wire.

“A thousand songs/Still smolder now/We played them as one/We’re older now,” sang Daltrey. They are indeed older now, but as this show demonstrated, the aging kids are still all right.

Set List:

I Am the Sea
The Real Me
Quadrophenia
Cut My Hair
The Punk and the Godfather
The One
The Dirty Job
Helpless Dancer
Is It In My Head?
I’ve Had Enough
5:15
Sea and Sand
Drowned
Bell Boy
Doctor Jimmy
The Rock
Love, Reign O’er Me
Who Are You
Behind Blue Eyes
Baba O’Riley
Won’t Get Fooled Again
Tea & Theatre        

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