My friend Lou gave me a ticket to the Who and it was a love fest, a pot fest with boys of all ages, playing airguitar and singing along to Baba Oreilly/teenage wasteland
PETE IS ONE HAPPY JACK AT
GARDEN PARTY
By DAN AQUILANTE
THE Who's Pete Townshend is one of rock's superstars who has always made time to speak with me for interviews, and the music he has written over the years easily ranks among my favorites.
That made writing about how nasty he was to the Jones Beach audience and to bandmate Roger Daltrey last week so difficult.
I'm happy to write that The Who played a spectacular turnaround concert at Madison Square Garden Monday at the first of a two-show engagement that concluded last night.
The players were the same and the set only slightly changed.
The difference was a negative review that called the master to task, as well as his trust that the Garden audience will give his songs, new and old, a fair shake.
He should have trusted the Jones Beach crowd as well. Whatever twisted him at that show was erased when he played America's cathedral of rock. In the Garden, the guitarist was a happy man.
Between the new tune "Fragments" and "Who Are You?" he beamed at Daltrey, and joked about his angry patter of the previous week - and having to read about it in The Post - and said, "Roger told me not to say anything tonight."
Townshend didn't have to - he brilliantly let his guitar flash and songs speak for him.
Still, Townshend couldn't help himself. When he introduced "Behind Blue Eyes," he reminisced about playing it for the police and firefighters at the Concert for New York City five years ago at the post-9/11 benefit performance. When he said, "I love the city," it wasn't a showbiz moment - he couldn't have been more sincere.
Another big difference was neither Daltrey nor Townshend apologized for playing new songs. Instead, they displayed fiery confidence in the material, especially in the songs "Mirror Door" and "Black Widow's Eyes."
Of the band's older tunes, "Baba O'Riley" and its chorus of "it's only teenage wasteland" transformed the standing fans into a backup choir, and the rendition of "Won't Get Fooled Again" was reclaimed from a TV theme song into the politically galvanizing anthem it is.
While both this and the Jones Beach concerts were memorable, fans will remember the Garden gig for all the right reasons.
dan.aquilante@nypost.com
