The Who began the North American leg of their The Song Is Over farewell tour Saturday evening at the Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Florida. And even though this isn’t technically a Who’s Next tour, their set featured seven of the nine songs from the 1971 landmark LP. That includes “Going Mobile,” which the Who had never before played live.
“Going Mobile” is Pete Townshend’s ode to a life lived on the road, and he sang lead on it himself. “I don’t care about pollution,” he sang. “I’m an air-conditioned gypsy/That’s my solution/Watch the police and the tax man miss me/I’m mobile.”
To be clear, this wasn’t the first time members of the Who have performed the song live. Pete Townshend played it in February 2000 at two special solo Lifehouse concerts at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London, England. And it’s been featured at 141 Roger Daltrey concerts between 2009 and the present. Each time, Simon Townshend — Pete’s younger brother and Daltrey’s longtime solo bandleader — played guitar and delivered the vocals.
But until Saturday night, it hadn’t been done at an actual Who concert. Simon Townshend has been part of the Who’s touring band since 1996 (with the exception of their 1999/2000 tour), and he once again handled the “Going Mobile” vocals even though his brother Pete was on the other side of the stage.
That means we now have 144 live performances of “Going Mobile” across Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, and Who concerts. Simon Townshend has sang it 142 times, Pete Townshend sang it twice, and we still have yet to see Pete sing it on the same stage as Roger.
And despite many complete performances of Tommy and Quadrophenia over the years, the Who has never done Who’s Next straight through. At this point, they just need to add “Getting In Tune” and “My Wife” to make it happen. They’ve done “Getting In Tune” as recently as 2014, and it wouldn’t take great effort to bring it back.
“My Wife,” however, is a very different story because John Entwistle wrote it and sang lead. They haven’t done any of his signature songs since he died in 2002. But they faced a similar dilemma with “Bell Boy” on the 2012/13 Quadrophenia tour since that’s a Keith Moon tune. They solved it by showing archival concert footage of Moon singing the song. If they wanted to bring “My Wife” back, they could do something similar with an old Entwistle video.
The rest of the Who’s Song Is Over setlist was nearly identical to the shows they played last month in Italy. It includes nearly all of their hits alongside a handful of deep cuts like “I’ve Had Enough,” “Tea & Theatre,” Love Ain’t For Keepin’,” and “The Song Is Over.” The latter song is the last song they played with longtime drummer Zak Starkey before a very messy separation with him earlier this year.
The Who’s tour continues Tuesday night in Newark, New Jersey. The U.S. leg wraps up September 28 in Las Vegas. As of now, there’s no word about additional overseas dates.
