Gig review: Roger Daltrey

HAD Roger Daltrey been appearing alongside his only surviving Who bandmate Pete Townshend on this tour, the largest indoor arenas would scarcely have contained the demand. Yet Townshend's deteriorating hearing currently isn't up to the task of playing loud music, and so Daltrey – himself the victim of bouts of vocal trouble and stage fright in recent years – has headed out on this reprise of the rock opera Tommy under his own name.

Sixty-seven and still sporting those sandy blond curls, Daltrey has gathered together an amazing band which includes Townshend's younger brother Simon on guitar. Together, they delivered a faithfully textured and noisy reading of the 1969 album, played as one hour-long suite.

The stand-outs were predictable – Pinball Wizard, I'm Free, a rousing We're Not Gonna Take It to finish – but the partisan crowd greeted every single interlude and eccentric movement of the piece with fevered applause. Arguably even better, though, was the rest of the set, described simply by Daltrey as "an hour f***in' about".

A raft of old Who classics were played to perfection, including I Can See For Miles, Pictures of Lily, Behind Blue Eyes and Who Are You, with Going Mobile apparently never having been played by Daltrey's old band.

There were pleasant surprises too, including a tender acoustic merging of Can't Help Falling in Love With You and Real Good Looking Boy, a Johnny Cash medley to give Daltrey's voice a break, and a short, slow blues version of My Generation, its new pacing more in keeping with the singer's actual current vintage. Most breathtaking of all was Young Man Blues, as raw, timeless and archetypal as Daltrey's voice itself.