...make no mistake about it.
If, like me, yer living in the future with a gigantic, high def, digital telly, maybe you've been using your little red button to access the BBC's Electric Proms coverage. Some great stuff, especially The Who's set that's been on since yesterday. I keep saying it, but I'm gobsmacked at how vital a live entity they've become again. Pete's guitar playing was particularly ferocious, with some Jeff Beck-y flourishes that tell me he's stopped resting on his laurels as a guitar player. It used to be genuinely sad to see a band touring under The Who's name, with horn players, backing singers, and some old wreck who looked kinda like Townshend strumming unconvincingly at a Gibson acoustic, while sessioneers played a watery pastiche of his style. This is looking like the most Lazarus-like reanimation in rock since Neil Young sneaked out the El Dorado e.p. in Japan.
Anyway, non-UK residents, and those backward primitives getting by with analogue television, can access some of the set here, until November 5th. Along with highlights of The Who's set, there are also full sets by Billy Bragg, The Raconteurs, The Good, The Bad and The Queen (not as bad as you might have heard - I loved 'em) and many others (doubtless Daltrey's internetophobia is again to blame for the curtailment of his band's web presence).