The Who Classic 1982 Concert Gets A Release Date

The Who North American Tour in 1982 supported a new album for the band. "It's Hard," was the first release for the band since the death of founding member and drummer Keith Moon died in 1978. New drummer Kenny Jones replaced Keith in 1978 and played on the new album.

On September 30, 1982, The Who played in front of 76,000 fans at the Pontiac Silverdome with the Clash and Eddie Money. The show featured 22 Who songs with a 3-song encore. Pete Townsend said to the crowd, "I wish we had many more years to play for you. So we would never play a piss-hole stadium again." Pete was allured to the acoustics inside the Silverdome, which wasn't very good as the sound bounced all over the Teflon-coated fiberglass panels.

The Who performed at Shea Stadium in Flushing, NY, on October 13, 1982, with The Clash opening. An audio souvenir of the full concert is being released via Universal Music and Mercury Studios on March 1, 2024,

The set list included several tracks from It’s Hard, some of which the band would only play live on this tour. The show also featured classic  Who rock favorites such as “Pinball Wizard,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” “My Generation,” “Substitute,” “Who Are You,” “I Can’t Explain,” “Baba O’Riley,” and more.

Check out the setlist from the iconic show below. Songs and setlist were confirmed by Setlist.fm.

The Who at Shea Stadium 1982 Setlist
1 Substitute
2 I Can’t Explain
3 Dangerous
4 Sister Disco
5 The Quiet One
6 It’s Hard
7 Eminence Front
8 Behind Blue Eyes
9 Baba O’Riley
10 I’m One
11 The Punk and the Godfather
12 Drowned
13 Tattoo
14 Cry If You Want

CD2
1 Who Are You
2 Pinball Wizard
3 See Me Feel Me
4 Love Reign O’er Me
5 Long Live Rock
6 Won’t Get Fooled Again
7 Young Man Blues
8 Naked Eye
9 I Saw Her Standing There
10 Summertime Blues
11 Twist and Shout

To pre-order Live At Shea Stadium 1982

Oder for Amazon here as well as a 3-LP se. here (A Blu-ray is available here.)

The Who remains one of rock's most influential bands. Founded in London in 1964, the band's classic lineup featured Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, John Entwistle and Keith Moon.

The final album from the band's classic lineup was Who Are You, which was released on August 21, 1978. Sadly, Moon died just three weeks after the album's release from an accidental overdose.

The Who's entire catalog is full of absolute gems. Most of the band's music was written by Townshend. He touched on rock's most iconic themes and feelings in a way few did or really have sense. That aspect was touched on in the 2000 film Almost Famous. Jeff Bebe (Jason Lee) says at one point in the movie, "Some people have a hard time explaining rock and roll, really explain rock and roll. Maybe Pete Townshend, but that's okay."

To pay tribute to Who Are You and The Who themselves, we're taking a look at some of the band's most iconic lyrics in their catalog. Sit back and enjoy one wild ride!

Townshend has always packed a lot of wryness in his lyrics and general demeanor. A great example can be found on "Baba O'Riley." The "teenage wasteland" refrain wasn't celebratory; it was more a cautionary tale of young people and their overuse of acid and other drugs, which was inspired by what he saw when The Who played Woodstock.

One of the best debates could be whether Townshend was a cynic or a realist. Perhaps it's a little of column A and B. Like "Baba O'Riley," "Won't Get Fooled Again" and its closing line ("Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss") was inspired by what Townshend saw at Woodstock. He later told Creem in 1982, "All those hippies wandering about thinking the world was going to be different from that day. As a cynical English arsehole, I walked through it all and felt like spitting on the lot of them, and shaking them and trying to make them realise that nothing had changed and nothing was going to change."

"Who Are You" came to be after Townshend tied one on with the Sex Pistols' Steve Jones and Paul Cook in New York City. The guitarist got so drunk, he was found passed out by a cop. The officer recognized Townshend and let him go if he could "get up and walk away." Of course, that still didn't stop Townshend from asking the cop, "Who the f*ck are you?" when he was awoken from his drunken slumber.

As long as more people are born, "My Generation" and its angst will resonate. Long after every member of The Who has left this mortal plane, young people will find this song, and it'll hit as hard as it did for the Mods of the '60s.

On the surface, "Bargain" seems like a love song. However, there's a far greater depth than is expected. Townshend once said of the track, " ... This song expresses how much of a bargain it would be to lose everything in order to be at one with God."

Closing out Tommy was "See Me, Feel Me." These lyrics acknowledge the overall theme of senses in relation to the rock opera's titular character.

To begin with, drinking while listening to T. Rex is just fun and highly recommended. Also, while The Who's catalog is incredibly angsty, it's nice to just hear an upbeat love song.

"The Seeker" embraces the destructiveness of trying to find yourself in an increasingly dark world. Townshend told Rolling Stone in 1970, "Quite loosely, 'The Seeker' was just a thing about what I call Divine Desperation, or just Desperation. And what it does to people."

Another tribute to youth, but it's a little more optimistic about drinking and drug use. Townshend said during the recording of The Who's 2000 live album Live at the Royal Albert Hall, "When I wrote this song I was nothing but a kid, trying to work out right and wrong through all the things I did ... There was almost nothing that I didn't try to use, and somehow I'm alright."

An autobiographical tale, "Long Live Rock" is one of The Who's best anthems. Anyone that loves rock music and the joy of a raucous live performance can relate to this track on a very primal level.