Play The Hits: The Who

Posted on Tuesday 31st January 2023 at 16:00

Get excited: legendary band The Who have just announced their first tour in 6 years, which sees them joined by an orchestra to take their classic rock to a truly epic level for thrilling shows throughout July. Tickets are released at 10:00 on Friday with Gigantic. CLICK HERE to set your event reminder!

The Who Hits Back! tour sees founding members Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend revisit the songs that shaped the sound of rock, coming to a stage near you!

"Having not toured the UK for six years, it's great that at this time of our careers we have the chance to go to places that are not on the usual touring map Edinburgh Castle and Derby, as well as the other cities across the country that we haven’t been to for decades, will make this very special for me. This opportunity will give our UK Who fans the chance to hear our current show, which, with the addition of an orchestra, takes our music to new heights." – Roger Daltrey

We celebrate The Who returning to the road by revisiting their very best tunes. Keep scrolling to check out our top choice tracks!

“Pinball Wizard”

Taken from the mad cap rock opera Tommy, “Pinball Wizard” tells the totally insane story of the deaf, dumb and blind protagonist who is somehow the perfect pinball player. Why did they write such a crazy song? Not even the band seems to know, but certainly no-one cares just how batshit the premise is, with fans rocketing it high into the Top 10 upon release in 1969, before buying 20 million copies of the double album over subsequent years.

“Baba O’Riley”

“Baba O’Riley” is the ultimate anthem of adolescent alienation, often mistitled as “Teenage Wasteland” owing to the song’s chorus refrain. Originally penned for the forementioned Tommy, the song was inspired by the detritus of the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival which looked like a rubbish dump following three days of 150,000 revellers partying to the likes of Bob Dylan, Free, Joe Cocker and The Who (obviously).

“My Generation”

Okay, so they didn’t exactly all die before they got old but “My Generation” still is the rallying cry of the mod youth with some quarters calling it the very first ever punk single. Ranked at 11 in Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, it has all the classic ingredients for The Who: including Townsend’s whirling guitars, Moon’s amphetamine fuelled rampant drumming, a brilliant bassline from Entwistle and Daltrey just swerving from using a very naughty word at the very last second!

“Who Are You”

The Who’s eighth album may not be their best, but it did produce the phenomenal title track “Who Are You”! Incorporating elements of disco and prog rock at a time when the punk rock revolution was in full swing and new wave was sweeping in; it was a bold choice by a band who were so proud of their single, they even put their name on it.