THE WHO: .....ROCKIN' LIKE BASTARDS !!!!......AND THATS ONLY THE SOUNDCHECK !!!!!!!

My olde Geordie mate ,the incredibly tall (going grey) SIMON MALIA.....This maniac is a maaaaaaaaddd, maaaaaaadddd, mad , psychotic WHO fan since before they formed ,i often think. Well his lovely missus in a  moment ofcrazed

 alcohol fuelled love and genorosity treated Simon to a V.I.P. ticket for the WHO's performance of QUADROPHENIA at the MANCHESTER ARENA last night. So this entitled the lanky ,jammy Geordie bastard to be allowed in early to sit through the soundcheck ,get 'nibbles' and a bag of pressies and swap phone numbers with those TOWNSHEND and DALTREY chappies.

When i asked how it went ,he was still stunned . He explained that he expected the soundcheck to be ;ROGER DALTREY doing a little singing; PETE TOWNSHEND  doing a little strumming on his guitar ; A few thumps of the drums; Tinkles from the keyboards; Parps n' toots from the brass, etc......."BUT NOOOOO!!.......THEY CAME OOT ROCKIN' LIKE BASTARDS!!!!!......DALTREY SCREAMING AND TOWNSHEND LETTING RIP LIKE A MANIAC ON THE GUITAR......THEY ROCKED LIKE ABSOLUTE F**KIN' BASTARDS!!!"....( his words ,translated from the original geordie to scouse for all you intellectuals out there.).....So ,Simon god bless his bry nylon socks, was blown out of said socks.

For the rest of us V.I.P.'s (very unimportant people) who had to fight through to our seats in the normal, standard hustling n' bustling pain in the arse way we finally got there in the corner alongside mr PETER TOWNSHEND,which was fine by me. I thought i would try my missus's (THE LOVELY LYNNE) old prescription glasses ,as my far distant vision isn't wonderful ,but these specs afforded this HD vision for the show which was quite revealing. I could count the bristles in Townshends beard , i couldnt believe it....I'm a little off a dog n' white stick, but surely my vision isn't that bad ,but surely its not meant to be that good!

Lynne ,the previous 2 nights had been playing with her ska band THE MANCHESTER SKA FOUNDATION, Friday in a boozer and Saturday we found ourselves in a tent in a bog of a feild at a festival in Stockport. I was given a posh laminated back stage pass to hang round my neck, as i was with the band....Felt dead important. I thought "I know i'll try and use this for the WHO tomorrow, but the bastards at the ARENA wouldn't let me.

But THE WHO were magnificent , fire and passion exploded forth and they 'let rip' and sounded great...Lynne was bouncing, singing and hammering hell out of my thigh...I have a MOD roundel of a bruise on my thigh today. The daughter ,ELARA was typically ashamed of her mum n' dad ,even though she loved the show. Lynne said that the TROMBONIST came in late a few times and she almost had to be physically restrained from running down to offer PETE TOWNSHEND ' Her services for free(?)'....I assume this was her tromboning abilities!

So if your bored with THE WHO , tough shit ,i'm not ,i'm still on cloud 9 and they are on next week in the fair city of LIVERPOOL and ,hopefully we'll see PETE'S little brother SIMON TOWNSHEND in town on the Monday

THE LOVELY LYNNE managed to get some quite good footage on her I-pad ,barring some womans 70's perm in front of us ,but one bit she did get, which if i can i shall put on ,is PETE TOWNSHEND  having guitar trouble after a series of vicious windmills during BABA O'REILLY and ripping the guitar off and slinging it way back stage to wrap around some poor technicians head...If i'd've managed to get back stage with my fancy laminated back stage pass, i could've had PETE TOWNSHEND'S guitar wrapped around my head....Oh the chances we miss in life, hey!

'ORRIBLE HARRY POTTER N' THE UN 'ORRIBLE 'OO!!!!

                                                                           WHAY HEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.................Its a grotty wet cold Warrington morning, not that theres any other kind ,so i'm fairly used to it ,but what makes this grotty morning different from all the other grotty mornings is that for some reason i've managed to get an image on the fuckin' blog ,at long last!......Forgive the colourful language, but i've been totally screwed for weeks and ,although i haven't a clue what i've done .....I've done it!.....I did a couple of pure painted caricatures the other day ,not using pencil sketches or anything ,just slapping on the jolly old acrylic paint. The reason you have been exposed to yet another WHO image is twofold.....If you are sitting comfortably ...I shall explain.

The other week we were across the'pond' in the good ol' U.S.of A. We had a trip to Florida no less. The weather was nice and there wasn't that many people there so the 'parks' weren't full so 'yours truly' could go on the rides 'again n' again....I admit it ,i'm a middle aged ol' fart and i love 'the rides ,even the simulated ones ,like SPIDERMAN and THE SIMPSONS at UNIVERSAL....But the main reason for the park trip was because my daughter ELARA is an out n' out HARRY POTTER nut!.....Her mum THE LOVELY LYNNE is quite fond as well it should be said and has read the books a heap of times. The two of them have the ability to 'fly' through books ,Lynne can read an 8 inch thick tome in a day...It's a gift i'd love to have, but alas! Elara takes after her mam ,thankfully and zooms through books retaining the information ,yet another gift i don't possess. But anyhow the two of them were reading HARRY POTTERin the Florida sun and going on the HARRY POTTER RIDE again and again and yet a few more agains and again, but its all very clever and impressive and they loved it.

But HARRY POTTER was a big part of the trip ,but not all .....There was something else ,far more important due to take place!

THE WHO were playing in down town ORLANDO!!!!.....And we were going to see the boys. Anight or two before we went to see them ,they played their first QUADROPHENIA gig and after when they were ploughing through the hits when my best mate PETE TOWNSHEND with his much publicised hearing difficulties muttered something about the sound levels and walked off....Nothings ever simple when the 'ORRIBLE 'OO go on stage. Our tickets were for Petes side of the stage and we had visions of bare stage with tumbleweeds blowing across. But the boys were there on the night in fine fettle and let rip !!!!.Townshend leaping about like a madman, wonderful! And Daltrey sounding stunningly powerful after surgery on his throat a while back....Even ELARA conceeded "THEY WERE AWESOME!"......Praise indeed!

Across the road was a boozer where we met a few English lads who'd lived in the states for years, one had a proper Union Jack jacket as TOWNSHEND  and MOON used to wear i got a photo of me wearing it ,if i can work out the advanced technology in putting a photo on the blog i'll treat you . Lynne now knows what she can gether stylish hubbie, me for xmas, wether she'd let me out in it is another matter, although she'd not be above nicking it for one of her SKA GIGS ,as she's done to her daughters DOC MARTENS boots( what would the bank say?...) And you lot thought she was nice and respectable, well !Let me tell you!...............

The other reason for the WHO picture was purely because it was on the scanner from last week so PETE n' ROGER were my scanner guinea pigs..............

WHAT DO 'THE WHO', SKY +, N' A SORE LEG HAVE IN COMMON?

ME, THATS WHAT!....... A week ago , i woke in the middle of the night shivering and shaking with a raging fever, it was a patriotic fever ,my leg ,where some infection had started (cellulitis, for those clever medical sorts) was red and the rest of me freezing to death was blue except for my clenched jaws and knuckles which were white. The following week was spent in and out of sleepy byes on the setee in front of the telly catching up on all the stuff we'd recorded. This was interuppted by the occasional howls of agony as i tried to stand to go for a pee, which is quite a lot as they've given me so many tablets that i truly do rattle when i move. And to aid the consumption of these truly awful tasting tablets i'm drinking gallons of water and ,of course tea. But all was forgotten and forgiven the other night as i went to bed and left SKY+ on, to record the SUPER BOWL!!!..Not through the slightest interest or understanding of or in AMERICAN FOOTBALL, But because, the Yanks ,Gawd bless 'em ,dont do things by halves.....AT HALF TIME THEY HAD THE WHO IN CONCERT!!!!!! Over here ,half time you go for a piss , over there they watch THE WHO?....I've no idea when they go for a pee, must be during the 8 hours of football, they wouldnt go during THE WHO...Even the Yanks aren't that much of a philestines.
But i hobbled from bed to settee and fast forewarded the SKY+ through the 4n' a half hours of the first half and ,finally there , in all their glory ,PETE TOWNSHEND and ROGER DALTREY! They let rip on an awsome circular platform with light displays ,rockets and lasers and were wonderful. At the start , with the crowd away in the darkness in the middle of a huge empty field with 12 minutes to 'do the works' .Ol' Daltrey started a little hoarse, but by the time they finished with WONT GET FOOLED AGAIN, Daltreys scream was as good as ever he's done .And Townshend 'exploded,' leaping ,windmilling and 'blistering' as only Townshend can. And a poorly sick dying man didn't feel quite so miserable, i almost bounced off the settee and leapt into the air to do a few air windmills ,a'la Townshend ,but that might not've been a good idea. But from there things started looking up . I'd gotten my WHO-BOOST, and i'm going on holiday and i'm walking. Tried a Townshend leap , but soon found out , it probably wasn't the brighest thing i've done recently, nearly pulled my shoulder muscle and landed on my bad leg and nearly bit through my lip stifling a scream. To give you an example of the differences between our transatlantic cuzins and ourselves. Whereas the super bowl half time show was THE WHO. Warringtons half-time rugby league show was....JEDWARD!!!!!.....I cant give a critique on that show as for some reason i didnt record that showbiz spectacular.

I was going to train every day so i'd look wonderful and DANIEL CRAIG-like in my 'cozzy', but i've been flat on my back for a fortnight and my legs all lovely ,blistered with a skin like a blood orange, swollen and where this rough skin has missed the rest is a bright crimson colour, very pretty. The problem is in comparison to the white spindley other leg it looks a little odd. Don't think i'll be bothering with my 'cozzy'!