If I were a 20-something who was seeing the Who for the first time, my main reaction would be “Their drummer is pretty good. The singers good for an old guy. I don’t get the guitar player, is he a singer also?”
They needed more practice. They needed it because of all the changes they made to their signature songs, amending them for time. Almost all of the transistions were shaky. These were the worst parts. Invariably, someone in the band was a little unsure if the switch was happening. Pete was often cutting out at these points. When he was playing it was not with his usual confidence.
Whenever they did happen to play 30 seconds or more of a song with no edits, it was great. They looked like a fantastic band. These are the parts I’m going to reply tonight before hitting delete. But just then a chorus would get skipped, Pete wasn’t sure if they were supposed to go to the break so he’d a big sustain note to cover it… sloppy work. And his voice was just horrible. What was going on there?
They did say afterwards that they couldn’t see anything, and it appeared they were having trouble hearing.
These days they say about themselves, “We’re not The Who. But we’re the best damn Who cover band in the world!” Unfortunately last night, they weren’t even that.
Update: Just listened to a second time. I upgrade it to a B-.