In 1982, the biggest rock song of the year was Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger.” At the tail end of The Who’s stubbornly defiant Live at Shea Stadium 1982 performance, guitarist Pete Townshend, for no apparent reason, utters that very title to the tens of thousands squished into the New York City ballpark for a last look at the British quartet on its ‘Farewell Tour.’ Sensing the shifting taste of the record-buying public, or maybe just having a little fun, Townshend citing the one-hit wonder of the Rocky III soundtrack suggests just enough of a hint as to his derisive demeanor on this good-bye trek across North America that would culminate two months later in Toronto. History tells us this was not farewell, if only to drummer Kenney Jones and not the key three of Townshend, Roger Daltrey, and John Entwistle, but did signify an infirmity of desire to continue as they had for the previous decade and a half- with an endless revolving cycle of an album’s release and subsequent tour in support. The Clash opened the Shea shows, and at the time was the punky harbinger stoking Townshend’s decision to call it a day. By ’85 The Clash was pretty much in ashes; Survivor, a Trivial Pursuit answer. Even Shea is today a parking lot. The Who? Currently on tour celebrating 50 years of Maximum R&B. Entwistle is gone, having passed in 2002, leaving The Two to carry the burden of a band Townshend still seems eager to shed. So, maybe that’s just Pete- which puts Live at Shea Stadium 1982 in the proper context as one of the first nights of the last 33 years of The Who, rather than one of the last of the first 17.
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