NKyTribune staff
Legendary rock band The Who have announced they’ll be moving on in 2020 with more tour dates, which includes an April 23 concert at BB&T Arena at Northern Kentucky University.
The Who’s April 23 show in Greater Cincinnati will have added historical significance.
The Who’s April 23, concert at NKU’s BB&T Arena in Highland Heights marks the band’s first appearance in the area since the Dec. 3, 1979 tragedy at which 11 concertgoers died, prior to a performance at what was then Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati (provided images).
It will be the first time the band will be performing in the region since 11 lives were tragically lost as the concert crowd waited to get into The Who’s concert on December 3, 1979.
The historic show was announced Tuesday night by local Cincinnati TV station WCPO after airing a documentary special commemorating the 40th anniversary of the tragedy – The Who: The Night That Changed Rock.
Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey were interviewed for the special program along with long-time manager Bill Curbishley.
The Who will make a donation from the concert to the P.E.M. Memorial, the organization that was founded to honor friends and classmates that lost their lives at the December 3, 1979 concert, providing college scholarships for students at Finneytown High School.
The Who represent one of the greatest rock legacies in music history.
Pete Townshend, left and Roger Daltrey, at a recording session (provided).
Their music provoked explosive change and spanned what many critics declare as rock’s most elastic creative spectrum, with Pete Townshend’s songwriting moving between raw, prosaic, conceptual, and expressively literate.Their visionary sense of stagecraft headed by Roger Daltrey’s soaring vocal prowess is topped off by the band’s blistering rhythm section.
Emerging in the mid-1960s as a new and incendiary force in rock n’ roll, their brash style and poignant storytelling garnered them one of music’s most passionate followings.
Inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall Of Fame in 1990, the band has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, placing 27 top-forty singles in the United States and United Kingdom and earning 17 Top Ten albums, including the 1969 groundbreaking rock opera Tommy.
In 2008, they became the first rock band ever to be awarded the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors. The Who has performed all over the world including global music events for the Super Bowl XLIV Halftime Show in 2010 and closing the London 2012 Summer Olympics.
The upcoming shows will feature THE WHO’s full live band comprised of guitarist/backup singer Simon Townshend, keyboardist Loren Gold, bassist Jon Button, drummer Zak Starkey and backing vocals by Billy Nicholls along with orchestra conductor Keith Levenson, lead violinist Katie Jacoby and lead cellist Audrey Snyder, passionately delivering THE WHO’s many classics.
Local symphonies will again be joining The Who for the 2020 shows, putting their indelible stamp on the music’s timelessness in support of Daltrey and Townshend’s trademark emotional power.
The concerts will also feature some songs from The Who’s brand new album, titled WHO, their first full-length album in 13 years.
Presale tickets for the April 23, BB&T Arena show are on sale now at Ticketron and will be available to the general public Friday (Dec. 6) at 10 a.m.
For more information about The Who’s 2020 dates, visit LiveNation.com or thewho.com.
Contact the Northern Kentucky Tribune at news@nkytrib.com
