9 Sep 2025
Sunday 7 September 2025: United Center, Chicago, IL
Show Report: Sept 7, 2025; United Center, Chicago
September 7th – the anniversary of Keith Moon’s passing. I prefer to remember all the middle days, not the last one (and birthdays are nice, but nobody’s cool/good/established yet on their first day, it’s just a start.) So here’s to the great man, certainly one of the (if not THE) most-distinctive drummers of all time! On these tours, we all think of him daily. There are probably about six people on this tour that knew and worked with him back then – which must be quite special.
United is a building we know all too well. Personally I can’t count the number of shows here, and it’s quite familiar and friendly. Our VIP folks come in for soundcheck, and I’m always worried we won’t have enough for them – time and music; this is a band that used to NEVER soundcheck, and now they are required to give half an hour. But so far, each one has been different, with surprises each time. For example, on the ‘Who Are You’ rehearsal, Roger’s giving instructions to the sound man, so Pete sings the last verse instead! It’s pretty cool. Loren has made a change-up we are trying out today; because his keyboard rig moved across the stage, he’s trying a new position for the lovely Hammond organ he brought. It’s facing the drums now – easier for some things, harder for others. He’s having to re-train his hands to play opposing parts now – in just a few minutes.
The band works on the entrance of ‘Cry If You Want’, which follows ‘My Generation’ each show. They stop to work out ideas with Scott D on drums, tempo is the thing; ‘Cry If You Want’ seemed much too slow at the last show. And Pete admits where he “feels it” is the problem; Pete’s tempo doesn’t work for Roger’s vocals, so they’ve asked Scotty to pull it upward during the transition to keep them on course. And the transition even stopped once or twice, which Scott explains was what he thought they wanted. So – more on this later. They work on ‘I’ve Had Enough’ – which is surprising because there’s been no mention of it being back in the show. Maybe it’s just to try it out? As usual, they run through an a capella (no instruments) vocal test of ‘I Can See For Miles’, to check vocal mix balances. It’s fine, but Simon T reminds everyone that we’d started the song that way one show, and it was a great effect. He says “It’s a great song, and we’re not playing it.” Pete points out that there are MANY great songs not in the show. True! “Maybe we’ll have to fire Joe Bonamassa and start playing at 7:30pm to get them all in!?” Joking of course, as the point is to keep the shows tight and powerful so they don’t become drained on the tour this year.
At the end of rehearsal/soundcheck, someone in the crowd yells “Where’s Katie?!” Roger answers right away, even as the stage empties out. “She’s right here” and Katie pops up from the sidestage where she’s been waiting – in case she’s needed for rehearsal. She has her violin and one of our sound guy gives her a wireless pack (so it will connect to the PA.) Loren starts to play some piano as backing, and Katie starts to work the melody and then a quick improv – all unexpected and unrehearsed. As I’ve said – these VIP soundchecks are always interesting and unpredictable. Each experience is unique.
Joe Bonamassa – well, Chicago IS the legendary town of the blues. And Joe is a bluesman of the modern day. He grew up a child prodigy, and has since become a highly successful guitarist who also sings and writes. His guitar collection is astounding, and I notice he’s playing through two amplifiers worth over $100,000 each! Meanwhile, Pete is using a Fender Vibro-King, a 1993 model inspired by his favorite amp – an unusual 1950s Fender model that Joe Walsh of the James Gang gave him. That’s what’s on Who’s Next etc. Also in the lineup this year is a new Alessandro amp that George Alessandro has done, an exact clone of Pete’s 1950s Fender. So now he has both sounds running simultaneously.
Mera Royle, a member of our sound and video crew plays ‘Arrane Ghelby’, a traditional Manx tune on the harp
Before the show starts, we run a giant screen slide of Keith Moon in his memory. And suddenly a nice short video of a beautiful girl playing a lovely harp piece comes on. I’m sure nobody in the room (but our crew) knows what this is! It’s our newest crew-member, Mera Royle, who is on our sound/video crew: This is her first-ever tour, and she’s a talented and professional harpist, but couldn’t bring her on the bus! So we get to see her play for the first time, and the audience is probably thinking “what?” But our shows often feature unusual or local things when we feel like it – shout-outs to audience people, or birthdays of the crew, etc.
And our show: Well, this one will take some explaining . . .
Video courtesy of Nunupics Zomot
“CHICAGO!! What a wonderful town!!” Roger’s right – it’s a hell of a busy and full city. So much to see and do. A music town, for sure. ‘I Can’t Explain’ begins things, as usual. Pete plays a twangy 60s type solo, pretty unusual. But every night is different, and if you’ve not noticed, he never does the same thing each night. For the second solo, he kicks into modern-guitar sound, more crunchy and sustained, so we get both sides. Pete says that he loves Chicago and has such great experiences here “except for the Irish people” – laughing. “You don’t know that I’m half Irish!” as he explains his grandfather was born on a certain street, etc etc. in County Cork. He’s not being insulting, and the crowd seems to know that.
During these opening songs, Pete’s having his guitar cut in/out randomly, some weird issue. His tech Simon Law runs out and back a few times, checking cables and usually – things are working. But what WAS the problem?
After ‘Who Are You’, Pete says “Now we know who you are, and you know who we are, so now we want to know who God is . . .” Roger says “Why?” and Pete continues, ”. . . and who Bob Dylan is.” (Dylan is harder than any of those!) They start ‘The Seeker ‘and Pete’s still having guitar troubles. At one point, Simon changes the guitar, and Pete takes the new guitar – it ALSO has the problem. So the throws the guitar away offstage! Well – it’s been a long time since we saw that happen. It’s not a big smash, just a “get rid of this” moment. Simon is scrambling, trying things and they do get a sound going.
And – we’re not out of the woods. Roger stops on ‘Listening To You’ – when he’s to sing the solo final part he always does. “I can’t sing over this. It sounds like a tin can in here.” Pete says “Well I can’t do it” and the song falls flat. Then Pete takes some time, asking Rog “Can we do anything for you?” Of course, everyone is willing to work and help Roger – but his description could be any number of problems – so hard to choose a direction to make it sound NOT like a tin can. And then a quiet pow-wow happens right in the middle of the stage, in front of over 10,000 people. Simon T joins in, talking with Pete and Roger, as everyone else waits for news of what may happen. It takes some time, but the audience is wide awake and patient – this is quite different. Suddenly, it’s back to action – and they start ‘Love Ain’t For Keeping’.
Pete jokes “Don’t worry, we won’t die tonight; we’ll save it for Philadelphia.” Everyone cheers. Roger points out “We won’t go without a fight!” Crazy cool guitar feedback experiments start and continue through ‘Eminence Front’ – but it’s not amazing tonight, just a good one, a weird one. When Pete and Rog talk about ‘My Generation’ being the song they stopped playing in 1968 (because they were “too old”) Roger points out – no, it was because they didn’t want to keep paying for broken guitars! Everyone laughs but as Pete doesn’t hear him, he answers “Whatever you said, I’m sure it was very funny!”
Then the song kicks in, and Pete’s doing something that sounds . . . ugly! “HELLO!” and it grinds to a sudden halt. Ooops – more problems. Roger laughs, already over the drama of a few minutes ago. Pete knows he’s the issue; “Sorry, I was playing it in the key we did in 1968! Again!?” and this time it’s better. ‘Cry If You Want’ – they approach the rehearsed transition tentatively, so Scott boldly just starts into the new song at the right tempo, and everyone follows. THIS is the kind of drumming that The Who needs; someone unafraid, and bold enough to drag two of the bigger (and most vocal) rock stars to follow him. Zak was quite good at it, and those many drummers who feel they could do the job (because they can play along to a record like Keith Moon), no: The Who drum throne is far tougher and more punishing than you can imagine. Honestly I wouldn’t wish it on a friend, it’s rough!
Video courtesy of Pure and Easy
Later, Pete talks about the early days in Chicago at the Electric Factory club, where he says they had great times and the audience were smoking pot, and the promoters put them on with other artists – often jazz people. He mentions Buddy Rich, the legendary drummer, being one of those nights. He said Keith Moon and Buddy sat for a long time, just talking. Later, Pete asked Buddy; “Is Keith a good drummer? I can’t really tell.” (As I said, he was the most unconventional drummer of the time.) Buddy said “Yeah, he’s a good drummer, a good drummer!”
‘You Better You Bet’ has the best singalong yet. These folks love to drink, and they are not shy; so a singalong is a good measure of that!
Video courtesy of Pure and Easy
‘The Real Me’ – more guitar troubles. In fact, I can see Pete has ALL his pedals switched on – which usually means a monster boost and fuzzy sound, and the guitar is 100% clean and plinky. He hates it – and Simon is scrambling; definitely not his best day today. It’s a while later before he finds the real issue – when we have a big opening act (like Joe Bonamassa) we have to move much of our gear. So Pete’s fancy pedalboard was moved and replaced, and then something or someone crunched the plug going out of the board, so it half-worked. And when he’d stomp on the pedalboard, sounds would cut in/out. Problem solved eventually, but it took many songs. (This reminds me that Chicago was the exact show where I had my worst day on the orchestral tour; and I very nearly quit over the events that day.)
Video courtesy of Pure and Easy
‘5:15’ starts, and then stops. “Start again -” Pete instructs. Oy!!! It’s a crazy show of mishaps today. Pete’s playing his most-bizarre stuff today, all kinds of dissonant and weird solos. I know he loves dissonant and strange music, experimental jazz and things like that – so it’s part of his style normally, but especially today – this is a night of angular/clashing guitar parts. “Hey. I it just occurred to me that a night like this, where we continually fuck things up; you should pay EXTRA!!” The audience roars, they seem to be enjoying the circus of it all. It’s definitely not the show anyone expected, and it won’t be forgotten soon. Roger always says – when we play things right, you won’t remember that!
Finally, ‘Tea and Theatre’ – we’re at the finish line and in this beautiful sad, quiet, reflective piece and Roger walks up to the microphone as Pete plays softly… BOOM!!!! Roger’s microphone (which is very, very loud) drops onto the stage. That shatters the mood, but Pete pops up out of his chair briefly and says “That’s EXTRA extra!!!” (“Read all about it!” – who gets that reference?) They start again and just laugh.
As they’ve said before, it’s how you handle a problem that makes it better or worse. Better!
So, this show had gremlins everywhere. It was eventful! It was memorable. I’m glad it’s not a live album. But “you had to be there” – everyone I know said it was a great show! Well, I guess so…
Onward – Next up: Two shows to make up from our recent lost gigs, Philadelphia and Atlantic City!
Tonight’s set list follows after the photo below so if you don’t want to know it, stop scrolling!
I Can’t Explain
Substitute
Who Are You
The Seeker
Long Live Rock
Pinball Wizard
See Me, Feel Me / Listening to You
Love Ain’t for Keeping
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
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