The Who perform intimate acoustic shows in Kingston

Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey performed two short acoustic shows at the Pryzm nightclub in Kingston Upon Thames in London last night (February 12th). It was the smallest gig they have done in over 40 years. They had played at the venue before back in 1967.

Accompanying Pete and Roger was Simon Townshend on acoustic guitar, Jody Linscott on percussion, Phil Spalding on bass, and Billy Nicholls on backing vocals. They were in great spirits all night performing to the boisterous home town audience, with lots of funny banter between songs.

Each show was around 45 minutes long, and they played the same 8 song set for both shows, which included the world debut of a couple songs from the new album, Break the News and She Rocked My World. They also performed Substitute, Squeeze Box, Behind Blue Eyes, The Kids Are Alright, Pinball Wizard, and Won’t Get Fooled Again.

The first performance of Break the News started out a little shaky, as Roger got a bit lost and had to stop the band. He paid closer attention to the lyric sheet for the second run, and they gave a great performance of Simon's upbeat song. They really nailed She Rocked My World, which sounded wonderful with Roger singing in a lower range, and the two acoustic guitars playing in the flamenco style. Hopefully these two songs will get added to The Who's setlist for the upcoming tour.

All of the seats for these small capacity shows were GA, and all shows sold out within minutes of going on sale. The ticket price was an astoundingly low £13, plus a small amount more to bundle various formats of the new album. The extra album sales from the shows were an attempt to push the album to number one in the UK, but unfortunately, they were narrowly beat out by Rod Stewart by only a few hundred record sales.

At the start of the first show, Pete chatted with the audience about that.

“Well you may or may not know, but this gig was the idea of one of our managers. And when we’ve done the 4 shows that we’re gonna do here this week, we’re going to f*cking kill him. (crowd laughs) Apparently, everyone who bought a ticket bought another f*cking CD or album or whatever, and thank you so much for doing that. We nearly got there.”

Pete and Roger will return to the Pryzm for two more acoustic shows on Friday February 14th to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their historic Live at Leeds show.

Many thanks to everyone who contributed photos and videos from the shows!

Check out loads more on our concert pages for the Feb 12 and Feb 14 Pryzm shows!

Pryzm show Photo credit: Horace Austin