The Who / David Johansen

Brucefan24 Oct 17, 2023

Flashback: The Who has 'last big gig' at the Carrier Dome in 1982

Updated: Sep. 15, 2023, 9:26 p.m.
Published: Dec. 11, 2017, 2:32 p.m.

By Johnathan Croyle | jcroyle@syracuse.com

A Post-Standard reporter was confronted by a music fan after leaving The Who concert at the Carrier Dome on Dec. 10, 1982.

"Big crowd," said the teenager. "Just write 'big crowd.' Put it in headlines. Big, huge crowd."

The veteran British rock band were on the final leg of what they called their farewell tour and the performance at the Dome was called their "last big gig."

The band's spokesman, Mason Buck, said the band was looking forward to the show, knowing it would be the last stadium show they would do in North America.

The concert was sold-out. The expected 45,000 fans would make it the biggest indoor rock audience in the history of the Northeast, and the biggest event in the short history of the Carrier Dome.

Tractor trailers had been rolling through Syracuse all week, hauling in all of the necessary sound, lighting and staging equipment, as well as a 120-person construction crew.

Lead singer Roger Daltrey would run in time to the music and guitarist Peter Townshend would play in his familiar windmill fashion on a 35-yard stage, bookended by two giant speaker towers.

The stage would be illuminated with 400 aircraft lights, 12 computerized lights that swivel in unison, and eight huge spotlights. A video screen over the stage would bring the concert closer to those in the far reaches of the Dome.

A reporter estimated that most of the crowd was in their late-30s, but many young fans were present. "The music gives you a feeling," said 13-year-old Else Siepecky, from Syracuse. "You get all rowdy, like during the food fights we have at lunch in school."

The Who took the stage at about 8:30 p.m., after a "short set" by David Johansen. Worries about the Dome's acoustics (it was described as "a cavernous pillow-topped acoustical Dante's Inferno") proved unfounded as the band "redeemed the arena during a hit-strewn aural assault that satisfied a generation or two of the veteran band's fans."

A review in the next day's Post-Standard by Steve O'Sullivan said the crowd "responded passionately" to the older songs, like "My Generation" and "I Can't Explain" which opened their performance, but "seemed unmoved and unfamiliar with the band's more recent songs." O'Sullivan said none of the band's panache had "been diminished even as the act nears its 20th year."

Lead singer Roger Daltrey voice was described as a "raucous bellow," and his moves while performing, O'Sullivan said, were "forceful and spontaneous and free of the over-rehearsed choreography that Mick Jagger minced through during his 1981 Dome performance." Peter Townshend's "long legs still cleave the air with trademark scissor-splits; his picking arm whirs full-circle through windmill arcs." Sadly, no guitars were smashed.

Over the next two hours, the band played such favorites as "Baba O'Riley," "Won't Get Fooled Again," "Pinball Wizard" and "Behind Blue Eyes." They closed the show with an encore, which featured a cover of the Beatles' hit, "Twist and Shout."

A Herald-Journal review summed the evening with: "Perfect. Remember, they're going out on top." The tour ended a week later in Toronto.

After a breakup in 1983, The Who reformed in 1989 for a reunion tour and are still active today.

Brucefan24 Apr 16, 2020

I did not take the video. It was pulled in from YouTube. Glad you enjoyed.