7 Oct 2025
Tuesday 23 September 2025: Rogers Arena, Vancouver, BC
Show Report: September 23, 2025. Rogers Arena, Vancouver, BC.
It’s been nice being in Vancouver – even for such a short time. I think everyone found something cool to do – and many cool things to eat and drink! It’s a wonderful place to visit for so many reasons. If you haven’t been here, consider it – as there’s pretty much something for everyone.
We’re in and today seems good. We’re on-schedule and making good speed setting up. Each morning our rigging crew “chalks” the space – they determine how big our stuff is (stage, lighting, video equipment) and work out the floor area needed. Not every room is the same size, of course, and there are often challenges in this. We also have less overhead/hanging equipment than many bands, but it’s a LOT of work to get it all up in the air everyday. They start the earliest and begin to plot our massive “footprint” for the day. Then the riggers climb out up top – way up above in the catwalks, where the venues have seriously-sturdy structural metal for us to hang tons of equipment!
It’s something I’ve only visited once or twice – as I don’t like heights – but these are specialized people, like astronauts! Not everyone can do it, and they get to use the magic of trigonometry every day to calculate exactly where our things ought to be – and then how to triangulate a series of cables that will give us “points” consistent with what our stage/video/lights will need to hang from. Riggers are not only employed for music tours, but anything like auto events, country music awards – whatever needs big professional light and sound packages. They are indeed unsung heroes in many ways, but we know them – and almost all of them help out the tour in other ways, pitching in with this or that project to make someone else’s day easier.
Speaking of – we have the first part of the day with just these structural/setup things. People actually build our stage, lock panels and legs and wheels in place. There’s the main big stage plus two side wings, plus we have the FOH (Front Of House) which is out in the main auditorium floor. The FOH position is for the audio and video controls. Mixing boards for sound, and lighting control boards for lights. Simple, but they are also on elevated riser stages so they can see over the heads of the crowd. Most people don’t notice this much, but almost every show has a big section of the floor reserved for this stuff. (I know a few don’t nowadays, like the Harry Stiles concerts that were SO popular they sold that space for more seats and put the mixing/lighting people outside in a hallway or something. $$$$$ talks . . .
Once our stages are built, they start to load up equipment – initially lighting and video. Lighting trusses are long sets of beams and cross-members; very strong but not as heavy as one might think (still rather heavy once loaded.) These are built up and wired, so much cable, and they run tests before lifting it all up. Then chain hoists pull up the lighting trusses and video screens. Our main stage video screen is actually built from small identical panels, that when wired together act as one big screen. This tour they have been SO reliable – and I remember when the technology was younger and newer they sometimes had to send someone up in a harness to pop out a “bad screen” during a show and replace it – while the music played. Now – it’s all super-reliable as far as I can tell. Plus the resolution and colors are much better than before. We get used to great video – but it’s a part of why our shows work so well now. On the sides – two additional screens – but these are projection screens, not LED panels, so they are less intense, but we use them for the closeups of the band. It’s a given that music shows have some kind of visual component like that for those seated father back.
Lighting gets done almost simultaneously with our PA sound company – rigging and pulling up their PA speakers. Both sides of the stage are built, connected, wired, and sent upwards as well. When the PA and light trusses get up, it’s time to start working onstage: drums, bass, guitars, keys – and more lights and sound equipment that sits onstage. A lot of unpacking, and this takes hours of setting up, plugging and testing. Once it’s all up – it gets tested, individually at first (like the bass technical wizard does his stuff) and then we test it all together to make sure everyone’s getting everything in good quality. Lights are flashing, testing, reprogramming for the day’s setup = a lot is going on. (We hear Sting’s ‘Fields Of Gold’ every single day for about half an hour or more – it’s how the sound guys set up our PA in every different acoustic space. They try to make it sound “right” in this new building. They also use a microphone with the old classic “TEST 1 – 2” over and over so they can work on specific parts of the sound.
Something to work on every day – we need it, maybe some repairs, but most of us have things we want to make better. Adjust the guitars, rework the percussion stage, fix some old issues with the playback track, or even test out our backup systems – the things we use to save the show when things go wrong. We have back-up microphones, extra speakers, pedals, synthesizers – some good options as a failsafe just in case big things happen. But for once, this has been SO much easier on the crew than the orchestral tours. We’re here all day still, but those tours left us very little (or no) time at all to get things fixed or improved. Now we have that option, and I think the shows reflect it. The same way the band will realize they didn’t play some section well; individual musicians (even Rog and Pete) will go away and work on a section, or rehearse it again and again in soundcheck. I’m sure on the last show (whatever “the last show” means!) there will still be band and crew trying to do something better than last time. There is no “perfect” – not in this world. But we do aim for higher quality in general.
At VIP soundcheck, Pete starts right in asking who was at the Shoreline show two nights before? “How did you get to stand completely on your own?” thinking that they’d paid extra to have the extra room up-front. It is explained to him that the Ticketmaster chart showed two rows in the front that didn’t actually exist – but wouldn’t this have made MORE people crowd into the section, not less. It seems they just had “front row” seats – and there is a decent-sized open “pit” area in front of that which they moved into. Simple – until Pete told everyone to come down. “Weird . . .” Pete recalls. Roger adds that it really sounded bad in there, maybe worse than he felt Atlantic City was. They run through ‘I Can See For Miles”, then “Who Are You”, as Binky stands out next to Roger as he plays electric guitar – to check the guitar level and sound onstage. At one point, Pete’s guitar goes waaaay out of tune suddenly. They all stop. “All I did was swing my arm, completely out of tune . . .” ‘The Seeker’ is rehearsed, a good sign if it’s coming back into the show! This was always Bobby Pridden’s favorite song – he used to do a little dance that only Bob can do, and I knew all things were well. “Kind of pointless doing a soundcheck” Pete weighs in. “It’s completely f***ing useless!” Roger adds – knowing how much different it will sound when the crowd enters. Very different – but in which ways? I’m One closes off the soundcheck – so Pete can try his acoustic sound.
Candlebox open again and the crowd are into it – most of them, which is a good win for any band. Playing in front of another audience is tough, but I think who fans are pretty open because the music of The Who is so varied and covers many styles; we all get comfortable with all sorts of music. It’s a 32nd year Anniversary tour for Candlebox, and for this tour, they have got a big graphic and logo behind them as they play.
Video courtesy of Pure and Easy
The Who are next, and Roger saunters out and waves casually. Then he shields his eyes from the bright lights so he can really see who and what are out there tonight. “Hello Canadians!” Pete yells, which is pretty funny. “Vancouver is such a beautiful city – thanks for havin’ us!” ‘I Can’t Explain’, the very good Kinks-style tune is a classic opener. ‘Substitute’, too – seems familiar! As you probably know, it has Roger’s favorite lyric ever; “I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth.” I also like how it’s the writings of a pretty young lyricist, who already avoided the typical love songs and wrote “substitute you for my mom” and “substitute me for him”. Even Brian Wilson’s “I may not always love you” seemed like a shocking opener in those days, but it eventually turns into he will . . .
Speaking of songs, ‘I Can See for Miles’; long ago, supposedly Pete did an interview about a forthcoming Who single, it was going to be the heaviest thing they’d ever done. So, Paul McCartney read it and tried to write the heaviest track he could: ‘Helter Skelter’. But people have asked for years what the Who track was. It’s likely it’s ‘I Can See For Miles’, by the timing of it all: But it’s a “heavy” track from a writing point of view, not in the sonic way that Live At Leeds gets heavy. And yet other people say there’s no such interview with Pete, or Paul claimed other things. So – maybe. Maybe not. But it’s a Who masterpiece nonetheless. And the “Eiffel Tower” bridge ALWAYS makes Pete move harder/faster, it’s the pay-off for him.
There’s a lot going on onstage, it’s pretty full, even though we don’t have the whole orchestra anymore. We do look at this larger band sometimes and think “is this necessary?” So many people look back at the early days and compare it – they think “this was the greatest when it was four raging musicians doing this!” and of course that’s true. For many of these songs where we now truly need Simon Townshend doing the guitar bits behind Pete’s bits. The vocal stacks on ‘I Can See For Miles’ really never could work with three or four voices in the olden days. Personally, I think one of THE greatest peaks was having the Quadrophenia and More (and the orchestral tours) where we got to hear the real artists doing ‘The Rock’ or Quadrophenia or some of the Tommy bits that were begging for proper orchestration since day one. It’s a different side of the same animal but Pete writes very orchestrally – even for a rock band. Of course, I love the stripped and raw Who, and it’s sort of a shame that there isn’t more give and take with that option.
Video courtesy of Pure and Easy
But at least, we’re not as bad as some of the Springsteen shows I saw, where they had SIX guitarists, two keyboard players, and two drummers – plus horns etc. A little too much in the wrong direction – but I think it’s back-up and reinforcement so the main artists don’t have to struggle as much. We must value that – maybe they wouldn’t be here if it was just four people onstage. Having percussion and keys and two guitars does sound “right” on most of these Who songs – that’s how the records are. Jody has told me that Pete got mad at her when she first started – because she wasn’t playing on a song; so she learned to add a little something to everything.
Jimmy Corbin on Roger’s monitors
Everything’s going smoothly today. Our main monitor man, Jimmy Corbin has stepped in to replace our buddy John Switzer earlier this year. He’s doing great – which is evident by Roger having better and better nights sonically. And Michael “Fitz” Fitzsimons is handling just the monitor mixes for Pete and Loren – not as intense moment-to-moment, but important nonetheless. Both are great at their big mixing boards on the side of the stage (Pete’s side, we call “Stage Right”) and I’m sandwiched between them each night, running playback and taking photos when I can!
And ‘Fitz’ manning Pete and Loren’s monitors
Jody Linscott told me that the big deep drum behind her is a Tama shell given to her by Simon Phillips: He didn’t need it as a kick drum, so she made it into a mounted drum, which gives a great sound every time she plays it. It’s also got fluorescent dots she’s spray-painted around the head, which match the top she is wearing tonight: All of these glow together in certain lights onstage tonight.
Pete’s guitar wizard Simon Law has nearly run out of picks he’d had made for the tour, so he’s using even older ones or whatever he has around: We usually have a new run of custom-printed picks on each tour. This tradition started with Alan Rogan way back in the 80s. On this tour Pete’s been using them a lot more than usual. He’s certainly going through a lot of picks tonight He often plays one for a while, then wants to grab and pluck the strings just with his fingers so he drops the previous one down onto the stage. I think there were three dozen or so down there just the other night at the end of the show. His picks (like many guitarists) are very collectible. Stage-used ones by Pete often show damage, from when he scrapes the pick all the way down the low strings, those picks have grooves cut into the edges. Once in a while, we find one with blood on it! When I was a kid at concerts, I’d wander up to the front of the stage at the end of the show. I would hold up a dollar bill, and then ask a roadie to give me a pick (a buck was worth a lot back then!) So I ended up with a nice big collection of all my favorite artist’s picks from the 1970s-90s. During the Covid shutdown, letting a lot of those older ones go kept me alive . . . Guitar picks are cool, I still collect them.
We rarely have bass problems, but tonight I notice our man Joel Ashton sneaking out onstage to deal with something in the dark, ninja-style. Joel joined us in recent years, spent a lot of time doing Roger’s shows and now the whole Who tour. Joel is one of the new breed – a super-roadie who seems to know everything about most instruments and has knowledge of all the facets of the stage, sound, trucks, logistics etc. He’s spent years on the road with The 1975, who are doing great business worldwide for more than two decades now, with no sign of slowing up. (Joel’s great-grandfather supposedly invented something very important, but I can’t remember just what it was!)
Video courtesy of Love You Live YVR
‘Love Reign O’er Me’ – Roger’s even holding all the notes longer than usual – he must be feeling good about this one. In ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ on the synth break section, Pete’s still noodling along a little on the guitar. Then when the big climax comes, some parts are “off” – not hitting at the same time. It’s happened before at some recent shows, a part that is usually right on the money every single night. Ah well . . .
Tom Kenney and Fuji bringing you the incredible stage lighting
‘The Song Is Over’ – theme song of the night. Roger does his “Thanks for all the years” line and everyone loves it. It’s been such a good show – nothing amazing, but one of the most-solid an enjoyable shows of this tour. A good baseline show, which we really need right after that tricky night at Shoreline. This felt comfortable and enjoyable throughout. No huge moments, either, which you sometimes get on the weird/bad shows, but the music is strong throughout, a fitting situation to end in a country that really has brought US all so much joy.
Video courtesy of Allan Nightingale
So, this may become the last Canadian show for the band. I recall so many great memories of visiting these cities. It truly is one of the more likeable and well-organized countries in the world. IF you can deal with the cold, there is certainly a lot to love about this country. The Who’s always had a strong foothold here, and often started or ended their tours in Canada…
Onward!
Tonight’s set list follows this photo of a lucky fan in his numbered limited edition tour jacket. If you don’t wish to see the set list then look away NOW!
I Can’t Explain
Substitute
Who Are You
I Can See for Miles
Long Live Rock
Pinball Wizard
See Me, Feel Me / Listening To You
Another Tricky Day
Behind Blue Eyes
Eminence Front
My Generation
Cry If You Want
You Better You Bet
Going Mobile
The Real Me
I’m One
5:15
Love, Reign O’er Me
Won’t Get Fooled Again
Baba O’Riley
The Song Is Over
Tea & Theatre
Check out The Who Store for exclusive tour merchandise including this Limited Edition Rogers Arena, Vancouver, BC 2025 Poster