24 Oct 2025

Wednesday 1 October 2025: Acrisure Arena, Greater Palm Springs, CA

Show Report: September 30 2025; Acrisure Arena, Greater Palm Springs

Following Vegas, we are in a different desert, about five hours away in California. The crew are happily dropped off here in nearby Palm Springs, one of my favorite places in the world. It’s a populated city about two and a half hours east of Los Angeles. Many people envision a desert as a barren place – well, it could be, but many deserts (like this one) are populated or full of life in natural ways. Many decades ago, the elite of Los Angeles adopted Palm Springs as the “close enough” getaway for weekends and golf, etc. Easy enough and different enough to L.A. to make a rather enjoyable location. And when it’s not unbearably hot, it’s actually fantastic warm weather year-round. Shopping, swimming pools, drinking – all the good day-off activities happen easily here.

The final show of this run is the Acrisure Arena, about 20 minutes over in Palm Desert. A little less-fancy, it’s nonetheless related to the Palm Springs community and certainly as populated. Paul McCartney just began his own tour here with two shows here this week. In contrast, our show was only added about three weeks ago, so it hasn’t sold as well as Sir Paul, but we’ve made it work. Many people who couldn’t get into the Hollywood Bowl shows (and many that did!) are coming out from Los Angeles to join in tonight. I’m sure as it’s the “last show” of the North American tour – there will be people thinking of that tonight. (More on this concept later).

The arena is newish and pretty clean and well-done. Promoters are getting smarter and smarter about how to book and run shows – which bodes well for them getting your money in some way or another. Although it’s not fully-booked, they had a plan: Subdivide the oval arena space by moving the stage forward by about a third into the room. This makes the partly-empty room look fairly full, as a third of the space is behind our curtains and video screen. It seems to have tightened up the sound as well, not so long an echo to the back wall and back.

Our opening act tonight will be The Sedonas. This act was found in an usual way: They sent The Who’s management a request, knowing that we’d added a single show on short notice. They have opened up for many top-level groups so they had experience, very simple demands, and knew how to deliver to a new audience. This got the nod from our team and the Live Nation promoters, and they’re off to the races tonight. The audience seems to like them, despite not knowing the band or history. Well, this is sure one that this band earned.

It’s quite a hike from Los Angeles where the band have been staying and the VIP guests soundcheck is starting quite late already. Roger apologizes for the long delay in coming out onstage, “The traffic held us up . . .” especially as it is Friday afternoon, probably the worst time to head to the desert regions. “. . . So it’s just me and Scotty at the moment” while we all wait for more musicians to emerge. Then we hear that Pete cannot possibly get here in time. “Are you gonna play, Simon?” Rog asks Simon Law – who nods yes, having been given instruction to do so by Pete. So guitar wizard Simon Law is again brought back on guitar for the tests. “Play very, very loud!!” Simon is told – that’s the Pete sonic footprint they want to hear.

Roger points out it’s useless sometimes, even with Pete. “Some nights it sounds like three bands at once. Is it any wonder we go mad!?” says Daltrey. They try to sing ‘I Can See For Miles’ – and Roger thinks it’s very weak “Is anybody else going to sing? Wakey-wakey guys!” The issue seems to be Simon Law – non-singer – who is standing-in for Pete, who is always mixed up solidly and his big voice is missing. Roger tries the ‘Naked Eye’ riff on his guitar – that would be cool to hear again. They work on doing ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ a little faster, as well as ‘The Seeker’ which seemed to drag a little on previous nights.

“I guess that’s it,” Roger admits. There’s no more to do with or without Pete. People in the VIP crowd say “Awwwww” a little disappointed. “Well, we didn’t die!” Roger replies, “but it’s around the corner. Anyways, thanks for supporting us.” and things wind down quickly.

I know Scotty wanted to run through ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ so that crashing chord (which has been missing for about five shows now) could be worked over. He’s had emails with Pete about it – time to try and test. Except Pete’s not here. I will have to find him later and talk to him about it. (I do later-on, but nothing much comes from it – other than an awareness to try to count it all off properly. Even that doesn’t work as tonight has yet another “off” moment; timing that just doesn’t work well.)

The Who come on – and the chat is good throughout, and they seem to feel something is up; this possibly last show. “Thank you for turning up at such late notice” – they are aware of the situations, for sure. Roger’s giving hand signals to Jimmy (his monitor engineer, new to this tour) and things seem to get better. (I can only decipher one or two of his signals . . . it’s tricky!) Pete and Roger are laughing often, no issues that I can see.

Video courtesy of mano1971music

‘The Seeker’ is faster, and it sounds good. I’m always remembering this was Bob Pridden’s favorite Who song live, and from Day 1, Bob’s special dancing was what endeared him to us so much. He was often grooving along right over by Pete in the 1970s – 2000s. (In the 60s he was out in front mixing and fixing show issues.

Pete introduced ‘I Can See For Miles’ by saying he demo’ed it in his flat/apartment in Chelsea with a couple of little tape machines. He also mentioned, that Eric Burdon was once asked about the meaning of the song, and he stated it was “about a man who can see a long way.” For ‘Another Tricky Day ‘ they joked about the traffic causing all the consternation today. I think even a lot of this crowd were stressed to get here on time – it’s a multi-hour drive from Los Angeles and this only compounded it all. Pete mentions his knee surgery from earlier in the year – the one he was recovering from during our Royal Albert Hall shows. He says now he can’t even remember which one it was, without looking for the scar. “Wanna see?” he jokes, then starts doing some crazy dance. Roger laughs, “Even I can’t do that!” It’s been good, with the last few shows where he has done the old Chuck Berry “duck walk” (no idea why it’s called that) across the stage like the ’70s Pete used to do once in a while. That’s pretty good news.

‘See Me, Feel Me’ is really special tonight. And ‘Listening To You’ is even stronger: Its anthemic/churchy repeating phrase is a welcome sound, and I’m starting to get some of those old “feels” that I used to when listening to this. Loren Gold has his Hammond organ on each show, and it sounds especially churchy during these parts – that’s part of the lift that happens during this segment live; Pete’s old organ chords really sing out and sustain against the vocals and band parts. Pete crescendos the whole group into a very big ending; right after the final crash, the crowd really responds. Any decent Who fan gets chills when ‘Listening To You’ finished up – the writing is mystical, ritualistic, a sports or war or religious chant – all powerful things. Sometimes just a small thing will happen, and suddenly the show has some of that ol’ magic again!

‘Going Mobile’ is again an early peak, with Rog and Pete so fully supportive of Simon on this one – and the ending is a big crash. “How are we supposed to end this?” they ask just afterwards. “Dabba-da…!” is one answer. “I guess we’ll never know!” Roger points out. Fair enough.

Video courtesy of man01971music

I see the band anxious to start into Quadrophenia with ‘The Real Me’, but Scotty’s having some issue with his hi-hat cymbal stand – the cymbals that get played the most in any song. Pete is always aware, and frightfully clever – and so he stops himself to take a drink of Coca-Cola: Because we’ll always be watching him, nobody will start a song without him, and he gets a boost of energy before some of the toughest songs in the show – all great reasons to drink a little Coke right now; but it’s really to take the pressure off Scott. This part of the set has the least “hits” but they are significant songs to any Who fan; you just didn’t see/hear ‘5:15’ or ‘The Real Me’ on the radio or MTV much. Nonetheless, they are outstanding classics. So many songs have come/gone over the years, it’s fun to re-look at old set lists; many of those songs will likely never come back, but used to be an essential number on a previous tour. (This week I’ve been listening a lot to the live version of ‘Dig’ from the Tommy 1989 era. Ah, memories.)

Video courtesy of mano1971music 

‘Love Reign O’er Me’ has a stunning guitar solo tonight – not so fast and rapid-fire but soaring and emerging with that great beauty that only comes from a great guitar!

‘Baba O’Riley’ is the usual powerhouse, everyone firing on all cylinders until Katie’s emergence and solo. The oom-pah chords that accelerate the ending are climbing faster and faster, and Pete usually calls the final stop – but he really, really stretched it out for a long time tonight – almost comically long!! At the end, everyone knew they had just seen something unusual. “I didn’t want it to end!” Pete admits. Probably our thoughts, too, tonight.

Video courtesy of mano1971music

Such a strange feeling tonight – we will be ending this chapter (maybe forever) with some of our core teammates, especially the video crew. The video guys are a family within our big road family, and have some of the best work attitudes and professionalism on the team, probably the best in our group. But since this is the last big show – the video screens won’t be needed this weekend at the Teen Cancer America event in Pacific Palisades. We don’t have much time to say goodbye – yet we do manage to get it in  – mainly to say “We hope to see you again!” On such tours, it may or may not happen. Or maybe they will come through on another tour and invite us out. It started one year back in the 2000s with an earlier version of this video crew; who knew we would spend nearly 20 years around the world with them at that early moment! Today we’re all working to prepare and pack things for this tour ending, as some of our staging and instruments won’t be used at the TCA event either, so it’s a definitely more complex work than a regular show, and everyone is pretty busy making sure the right things get done.

At the end – Rog and Pete start talking. Seems like “a moment” and it is, but we’ve all been cautious and suspicious of the “finality” of what this is. Pete leads off; “Here we are, the last show of the final tour. I don’t know how we made it this far, it could have been a huge disaster. But it was quite the opposite. Great response, great audiences . . .” He and Roger are unified here, “I suppose it’s goodbye. Goodbye to what we know as The Who for this kind of thing. Our goal in the ’60s was to make it in America.” And boy, they sure did that better than could be expected! It’s been their biggest market, and I’m told the only place that financially rewards touring artists strongly. So leaving here is a big deal – and it might not be that tours elsewhere will make sense. I would love a UK leg with just the band and no orchestra. Maybe.

OK so, their “final show tonight? Well, certainly not, as we have one in just a few days, but it’s a private event and not a full show. Charity work for the Teen Cancer America foundation, of course. Quite a special night of that coming up, so we’re not done yet. And will that be “the last” – likely not. I always envision some special event, as we saw with the Olympics or the Super Bowl, or some charity event special deal somewhere – as a reason The Who would get together again. The merchandise sold on this tour proclaims “North American Farewell Tour” – so if we can take that at its word, maybe. But I’m certain there are offers coming in; this tour was a success, despite many odds. And bands are always offered things from all corners of the world. However I do remember the Super Bowl show happening and none of the post-Bowl options were taken up, despite the new-found popularity of the band after that performance.

The Who band . . . but where’s John Hogg? Anyone seen John?

I know there’s been hopes for some shows in the exotic places they’ve loved before, South America, Mexico, Asia, Australia etc. Great audiences and exciting locales – not the usual. But there are drawbacks to each of these, too. Or just Jolly Olde England – it’s been half a decade since they toured there just as a rock band, and it’s so easy to set up and run a tour there – none of the stupid Brexit issues that now happen in Europe.

Video courtesy of RickKaz 

I also hope for an intimate future without the formal Who staging, maybe just The Two with Pete and Roger doing mainly songs together, like ‘So Sad About Us’ Everly Brothers style. Who knows, but that could be a version that feels valid, shows a different/mature side, and still brings the core reasons we come see them. Hope so – something to see, but maybe not like the old days.

OK, onward . . . I have a couple more blogs before we wind this up, too.

Tonight’s Set List. No need to look away for this one!

I Can’t Explain
Substitute
Who Are You
The Seeker
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