Roger Daltrey wrapped up his 24-year stint as the curator of the Teenage Cancer Trust Sunday night with a grand ‘Ovation’ concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall. The bill featured longtime Teenage Cancer Trust supporters Eddie Vedder, Robert Plant, Paul Weller, and Kelly Jones of the Stereophonics. The Who played two Teenage Cancer Trust shows earlier in the week, and Pete Townshend was originally on the bill for the ‘Ovation’ event, but he had to travel to New York for the opening of the new Tommy on Broadway.
The show wrapped up with Daltrey singing the 1971 Who classic “Baba O’Riley” alongside Eddie Vedder, Robert Plant, Glen Hansard, Kelly Jones, Simon Townshend, and members of the Who’s touring band. As you can see from this fan-shot video, the guests allowed Daltrey to cover all the vocals himself.
“I’m not going away from the Teenage Cancer Trust,” Daltrey said at the end of the song. “I’ve completed the job I set out to do. We’re going to get curators to do a year rather than doing 20 years. Talk about nerve-racking. But I’ve got other work to do for the charity that is more important because we live in a day where our NHS [National Health Service] is very questionable even surviving. We are part of that service, though we are a charity. If the NHS goes down, I want to make sure this charity doesn’t go down with it.”
Earlier in the night, Paul Weller brought Daltrey out during his set for a duet on the 1966 Who single “So Sad About Us.” Weller’s group, the Jam, recorded the song, and it was a regular part of their live show. Weller also played it with Pete Townshend at the first Teenage Cancer Trust that Daltrey curated back in 2000, bringing the entire event full circle.
Vedder arrived in England a bit earlier in the week so that he could catch one of the Who’s shows and join them for “The Punk and the Godfather.” His solo set at the ‘Ovation’ finale featured the Pearl Jam songs “Porch” and “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town,” the Swell Season’s “Falling Slowly” with guest Glen Hansard, and the Simon Townshend original “She Asked Me.” He also brought out his daughter, Olivia Vedder, to perform their duet “My Father’s Daughter.”
Robert Plant’s new group Saving Grace stuck largely to traditional songs like “Gospel Plow,” “As I Roved Out,” and “And We Bid You Tonight,” though they did briefly dip into the Led Zeppelin catalog for Led Zeppelin III deep cut “Friends.”
In perhaps a tiny preview of his upcoming American tour, Daltrey played Pete Townshend’s 1982 hit ” Let My Love Open The Door,” his solo tunes “After The Fire” and “Without Your Love,” Taj Mahal’s “Freedom Ride,” Leo Sayer’s “Giving It All Away,” Simon Townsend’s “The Way It Is” (with Simon on vocals), and the Who’s 1975 hit “Squeeze Box.”
Daltrey’s tour kicks off May 6 in San Diego, California, and wraps up June 20 in Highland Park, Illinois. The Who have no dates on the books, but Pete Townshend recently revealed possible future plans in an interview with The New York Times. “It feels to me like there’s one thing the Who can do,” he said, “and that’s a final tour where we play every territory in the world and then crawl off to die.”
