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July 10, 2018

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Roger Daltrey from The Who, performed the rock-opera Tommy with The Cleveland Orchestra in front of a packed-house at Blossom Music Center on Sunday evening.  

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The spry seventy-four year old is in great shape, sounds fantastic and still spins his microphone around like he did fifty years ago. 

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This summer, Daltrey and other members of The Who's touring band, including Pete Townshend's brother Simon, have been playing "Tommy" in its entirety with different orchestra's around the country.  

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Cleveland happened to be the last city on the tour, saving the best for last.

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Conductor Keith Levenson did a fantastic job with the arrangement written by David Campbell and of course, the orchestra played it flawlessly.

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From the opening notes of "Overture" to the hit "Pinball Wizard" to the closing "We're Not Gonna Take It," Daltrey and company performed the entire album straight through without an intermission, in about sixty-five minutes.

 

Daltrey couldn't leave the stage without playing a couple of other Who classics so he broke out "Who Are You" and "Baba O'Riley."  The later featured violinist Katie Jacoby who played the ending solo to perfection.

 

The show ended with "Always Heading Home" which is a tune from Daltrey's latest solo release As Long As I Have You.

 

 

Photos and review by Greg Drugan
 

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