Birmingham NIA

Well this was a show much much better than the RAH gig and the crowd were the second best Birmingham audience I have seen, second only to the last time they played the same venue!

The Set list was pretty much as played in Europe earlier in the week

I Can't Explain
The Seeker
Relay
The Real Me
Fragments
Who Are You
Behind Blue Eyes
Sound Round
In The Ether
Endless Wire
We Got A Hit
They Made My Dream Come True
Mirror Door
Baba O'Riley
Eminence Front
Drowned (Pete acoustic)
Man In A Purple Dress
5:15
My Generation
Won't Get Fooled Again

Encore

Pinball Wizard
Amazing Journey
Sparks
See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Heal Me
Listening To You
Tea & Theatre

The support band who's name escapes me had loads of problems, guitars not working, mic stands not working, broken strings etc etc but all in all should be given another chance, no doubt we will see them tonight in Sheffield. They were a 7 piece band from Liverpool and played some interesting original stuff.

The problems they encountered led to Pete stating when he came out that his guitar better work!The whole band were on good form, Rogers voice was back to normal, although he does look painfully thin these days and needs to put on a little weight.

Zak gets more like Keith every time I see him, I am sure he has been taken over by Keith's spirit, Pete quoted that Zak used to come and watch The Who when he was a young lad and learnt a lot of good and bad things from Keith, thankfully he forgot all the bad things and concentrated on the good.

Pino was louder than normal (for him) and could be heard all night which made a really nice change. Simon was superb too. Rabbit didn't put a foot (or should that be finger(s)) wrong all evening and considering the problems he has faced these past few months looked good even if he too has lost weight.

Roger being Roger got the words wrong on more than one occasion, but he is forgiven even if a lot of the audience didn't notice most of the mistakes!

Pete was on top form all night, plenty of banter with the crowd at how quiet we are in Birmingham and how Madrid were younger than us, how they needed to get back their street cred, like they give a fook.

Roger mentioned that he had watched The Zimmers earlier in the day and wished them luck and hoped that they had a number 1 hit around the world, Pete replied that he hopes they don’t as they had the song for nothing, Roger said that at least it will help pay for their nursing home and hoped that when he and Pete were in a nursing home someone would have a hit to help them pay, Pete quipped that he was going to have his own private nursing home and that he already had his own private personal nurse which raised a loud cheer from the audience.

Nice to see/ hear some different stuff in the set from the beginning of the tour, length of the set was pretty much standard for these days, came on stage at 20:35, finished at 22:50, I saw John Hughes, Paul from Southampton, Harry and Ian from Scotland but didn't get to speak to them, did get to see and speak to Gary and Melissa Hurley, apart from those didn't see anyone else I knew. We didn't hang around at the end; I was off the car park and home by 23:10 not a bad gig at all.For all who are going, see you in Sheffield tonight.

Ron