The Who 1999 Performances
| Tour by The Who | |
| Start date | 29 October 1999 |
|---|---|
| End date | 31 December 1999 |
| Legs | 3 |
| No. of shows | 8 |
| The Who concert chronology | |
The Who reformed again for a series of shows in late 1999 following both the momentum from their 1996–97 Quadrophenia tours and Pete Townshend's renewed interest in his Lifehouse rock opera. These performances are notable in that they were the first time the band played as a five-piece group since 1982, having toured with a large ensemble band in 1989 and 1996–97. Several of the shows were charity dates.
Townshend had spent parts of 1998–99 revisiting Lifehouse, which although it had not come to fruition, had spawned a number of Who tracks the group recorded between 1971 and 1978, many appearing on the Who's Next album; Townshend's 1993 solo release Psychoderelict also incorporated elements of both the story and music. With his most recent efforts resulting in a BBC radio play that would air in December 1999 and an eventual box set collection entitled Lifehouse Chronicles (released in 2000), Townshend also brought a fair amount of Lifehouse material back into The Who's act when they opted to reform for a number of shows late in the year, their first performances since August 1997. Townshend would handle all guitar duties (not including some sparse acoustic work from Roger Daltrey) for the first time since 1982, while the core Who members were joined by only Zak Starkey on drums and longtime keyboard player John "Rabbit" Bundrick.
The first performance took place on 29 October as part of infamous dot-com company Pixelon's "iBASH'99" event at the MGM Grand Las Vegas, which also featured other acts such as KISS and The Dixie Chicks. An intended live internet broadcast failed to materialise, though the group's performance did eventually see a DVD release in 2006 entitled The Vegas Job. The next two days saw the group do rare acoustic performances as part of that year's Bridge School Benefit in Mountain View, California alongside Pearl Jam, Brian Wilson, Sheryl Crow, and numerous other artists. Two charity shows at Chicago's House of Blues in November benefited the nearby Maryville Academy, for whom Townshend had also done charity solo performances in years past and released the live album A Benefit For Maryville Academy. Then, the band played two shows at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in London in December, Christmas shows in London having been a Who tradition of sorts during the Keith Moon era. Finally, the band took part in the millennium TV broadcast 2000 Today from the opening ceremony of the Millennium Dome (now The O2 Arena).
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