On October 14, 2022, which fell on a Friday this year, was an event that was like no other. It all started with a little road trip for me, from my home just outside of Lawrence, KS to the beautiful city of St. Louis, Missouri.
It all started when me and my plus one for the show left at 10:30 that Friday morning for our four and a half to five hour trek across the state. It was an easy drive, outside of pulling into the suburbs of STL (a lot of car wrecks and construction, delayed our arrival at the Enterprise Center by almost an hour), but we eventually made it through everything and parked across the street from the front/main doors, and had time to venture around the area and grab a little food before the start of the evening’s main event.
Unlike other venues, where the media enter through or close to the main doors with all of the general audience, at the Enterprise Center, the media enters through the back, where I was told that the game day media and players enter for the St. Louis Blues NHL team. However, with credentials on, camera gear at the ready, it was time to head down to the floor and capture the opening act for the night.
Now many of you might not be familiar with Mike Campbell and the Dirty Knobs, and that is okay. Mr. Campbell has been around for a while but has not always been in the main spotlight. Mr. Campbell will better be known as Tom Petty’s right hand man from the group Tom Petty and the Heart Breakers; and when I say “right hand man”, I mean it. Mr. Campbell co-wrote many of the band's hits with Petty, including "Refugee", "Here Comes My Girl", "You Got Lucky", and "Runnin' Down a Dream". Outside of The Heartbreakers, he has worked as a session guitarist and songwriter with a number of other acts, including composing and playing on the Don Henley’s famous hit "The Boys of Summer", as well as working on most of Stevie Nicks's solo albums. He has even toured with Fleetwood Mac since the departure of guitarist Lindsay Buckingham. He has also been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002 as a member of the Heartbreakers.
Mr. Campbell thanked The Who for bringing him and his band on tour and stated that it was a “dream come true”. His short set list included a few Dirty Knobs originals like Wicked Mind and I Still Love You, but also relying heavy on his old collaboration with Tom Petty and the material that they wrote together for songs like Fault Lines, Refugee, and Runnin’ Down A Dream.
It is no wonder though that Mr. Campbell was so close to Petty in writing, as from the first note the entire band sounded that of a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers cover band. That is not a bad thing, but it was interesting to see. I know that Mr. Campbell spend the vast majority of his career under that band’s name, but it would be interesting to see if he could break away from that sound. Hell, even Mr. Campbell’s voice was almost too similar to that of Mr. Petty., just being a few notes lower to add the obvious harmony that would be needed. Mr. Campbell even dressed as what one would imagine what a “Heartbreaker” would look like, if there was such a look.
On a personal note, there was one little issue with his set. While covering the song Refugee, he had put his own spin on it so much that the song was now where close to the original one that he co-wrote. It was so different in fact that both my guest and I agreed that the song in it’s original form was MUCH better.
However, Mr. Campbell’s sent included Wicked Mind, Wreckless Abandon, Fault Lines (a Tom Petty and the Heartbreaks cover), I Still Love You, Even The Losers (a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers cover), Refugee (a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers cover), and Runnin’ Down A Dream (a Tom Petty cover). This last song, Runnin’ Down A Dream, was hands down the best song of the entire set.
After a little break in the action came the act that everyone had waited for, The Who. Now this tour was something special. They traveled with their band, which included of course Roger Daltrey on vocals, Pete Townshend on vocals and guitars, but then a nice little mix of Pete’s brother, Simon Townshend on guitar and backing vocals, the keyboardist of Loren Gold and the second keyboardist Emily Marshall, bassist Jon Button and drummer Zak Starkey. If this name sounds familiar and you cannot put your finger on it, that is because he is the son of Beatles drummer Ring Starr (who’s real name is Richard Starkey) and the god son of late Who drummer Keith Moon. Moon was the person who influenced you Starkey into playing the drums, and even got Zak his first drum kit when he was a young boy. Backing vocals were provided by Billy Nicholls.
First the orchestra took the stage. It was a 48 piece orchestra that was assembled of strictly players from the St. Louis area. This is custom to each and every city that the tour goes through, with the tour conductor of Keith Levenson, with Katie Jacoby on violin and Audrey Snyder on Cello.
The band started off with the full orchestra when they played the Overture from the “Tommy” album. In fact, there were six songs in total from that album, and unlike other reviews of the show, I am not going to list which ones were with the orchestra and which ones were “band only” off of some industry website, but tell you that there was at least one or two people from the strings department that were playing on almost every song. If my memory serves me correctly, there were only three our four songs throughout the entire night that Ms. Jacoby or Ms. Snyder didn’t play on by themselves or together, or with the entire orchestra itself.
Yet, with that in mind, the Who sounded better than they ever had in my mind, especially with as many years they have behind themselves, making comments about how they had been in the music industry for 60 or more years and including all of the tours they had done and albums that they put out. It is no wounder that Townshend forgot which album one song went on, when he questioned himself out loud to Daltrey if a song really came out on the album “Live at Leeds” or not.
Yet, the two long standing veterans of rock and roll stood their ground and showed everyone in attendance that night that they could still hang with the best of them as their 22 song set filled the air in a almost full arena (that is to say that yes, there were sections of seats that were empty, from the floor all the way up to the upper nose bleed sections, where we are talking about blocks of 20 seats in a square were open on the floor).
I was asked once I returned home to Kansas how did this performance stand up to the famous Super Bowl XLIV of 2010, where they either gave the best or worst Halftime show ever, depending on who you ask. But regardless of what you thought of that 12 minute show, the one that I saw on Friday night was the best one yet. My guest had seen the band two other times as well, once in 1977 and then again in the early 80s, both at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, MO. He even agreed that this was the best that he had ever seen them (mostly because this was a show that he would actually remember [blame it on a different life years ago]) but the gave all they could to the audience and the audience, in return, did the same. While not a lot of sweat could be seen on the faces of the two elder rockers, that didn’t mean that they didn’t pour their heart and soul out at every note that went through the speakers that night.
So as an outtake of this concert, regardless if you think that they are getting too old or are one of those people who say “well it isn’t The Who anymore since Moon and Entwistle are not in there anymore”, go see this show if it is coming anywhere close to you. Trust me, it is not one that you will want to miss.
For this night, the set list was as followed (I say that because the added a few that were not on the other lists that were played prior): Overture, 1921, Amazing Journey, Sparks, Pinball Wizard, We’re Not Gonna Take It, Who Are You, Eminence Front, Ball and Chain, You Better You Bet, The Seeker, Relay, Naked Eye, Another Tricky Day, Won’t Get Fooled Again, Behind Blue Eyes, The Real Me, I’m One, 5:15, The Rock, Love, Reign O’er Me, and Baba O’Riley.
