The Who Tour 2006-2007

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The Who Tour 2006-2007 is The Who's first worldwide concert tour in several years.

[edit] History

In December 2005, Rolling Stone magazine announced that The Who would be touring in the summer of 2006, visiting countries such as Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Japan and Australia.

In advance of their new Endless Wire album release, and later to support it, The Who did a 24-date European tour followed by their first world tour.[1] These are their first shows since their 2004 world tour and brief performance at Live 8 in 2005. They played a number of music festivals around the UK, including headlining Oxegen in Ireland on July 8 and T in the Park in Scotland on July 9. They also closed the second day of Hyde Park Calling, a concert to celebrate the twenty year anniversary of the Hard Rock Cafe, on July 2.

Members of the Who's 2000s lineup remain, being Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend but also including keyboardist John "Rabbit" Bundrick (due to the illness of his wife, replaced on the current leg by his keyboard tech, Brian Kehew), bassist Pino Palladino, drummer Zak Starkey and guitarist/backup vocalist/mandolinist Simon Townshend. Opening acts to be featured on the worldwide tour include The Casbah Club, Peeping Tom, moe., Inward Eye, Rose Hill Drive, The Pretenders, and The Tragically Hip.

Commemorating Live at Leeds

It was announced at short notice that the opening gig of the tour would be at Leeds University Refectory on June 17th, the same venue at which they recorded the Live at Leeds album. Tickets to this particular show were sold in person only from the Leeds University Union, with sales limited to two tickets per person. [2] Before the concert Roger and Pete unveiled a blue plaque to commemorate the recording of Live at Leeds at the same venue 36 years before. This show was so greatly anticipated that the BBC covered the story, both on the day of the concert and the day after, including interviews with audience members as they were leaving the gig.[3][4]

When The Who performed at Hyde Park Calling, the presenters of the BBC TV programme Top Gear joined the band as roadies to test vans. The episode was broadcast on July 30, 2006.

The Who took a break from touring the US and appeared at the BBC's Electric Proms and on the Parkinson show on the BBC before returning to the USA.[5][6] Pete Townshend has said that he hopes to finish The Who tour with a gig at Glastonbury Festival 2007.[7]

The Who opened the North American leg of the tour in Philadelphia at the Wachovia Center.

Shows from the entire European tour were broadcast online at thewholive.tv. Video streaming company Streaming Tank have been placed in charge of broadcasting the concerts, headed up by the technical team for the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. This is the first attempt by any band to broadcast entire shows via the Internet since the Pixelon.com "Vegas Job" in October 1999, their first attempt at live broadcasting over the internet.^{[citation needed]} Most of the European shows were preceded in the broadcast by an episode of the web TV programme, In The Attic, presented by Rachel Fuller and Michael Cuthbert. At festivals such as the O2 Festival in Leeds, the opening artists for The Who appeared as guests on the show once they came off stage.

On October 3rd, 2006, iTunes released two singles from Endless Wire entitled "Tea & Theatre" (which is played at the end of the concerts during the North American leg of the tour) and "It's Not Enough."

Every performance (excpect for the Leeds concert) was recorded on both CD and DVD, and is available as part of the Encore Series 2006 scheme of releases.

[edit] Set list

Although the songs played at the concerts vary, they are relatively the same. The following set list is for the concert at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, New Jersey from September 21, 2006.