Roger Daltrey at The Piece Hall, Halifax Review

What gig-goers won’t tell you about The Piece Hall is that, even on its warmest days, it is freezing cold on a night. What gig-goers, those who have seen Roger Daltrey particularly, will tell you, is the veteran frontman loves to perform. He does. Not only that, but he proves his talents have not yet left him. He has plenty of fire in him and seems to be having as much fun on stage as he can be heard having on The Who live albums. It is rare to see a frontman in as strong a form as this, decades on from their debut, but Daltrey is a rare cut. His desire to break from The Who but also remain with the long-running band is admirable. At The Piece Hall, he gets the chance to reinvent some of his biggest and favourite songs. Covers galore and reinventions of absolute classics, that is what Daltrey enjoys doing and, by the looks of it, his audience enjoys it more.

The veteran frontman has developed a cool rapport with gig-goers. His joy for being on stage is genuine and the longevity of his time as a performer, those lessons learned on the road, are not forgotten. He can rally on from a bad mix in his ear or a shout from the crowd because he is seasoned enough to tackle those inevitable hiccups. Those in the crowd would have no idea, because the band backing these Daltrey solo shows are delightful. What comes through beyond the music is his genuine love for the business. Not the megastardom, but the grassroots, the musician whose work is sessions and live performance. He mentions as much early in the show, littering hits from his discography along the way. There are plenty to choose from. The Who pieces are frequent, but not at all overwhelming. Who Are You is given an early showing in the set, and the “little man” as Ringo Starr called him (and as Daltrey mentions) is quite content with giving his hits a new instrumental swing.

Baba O’Riley and Won’t Get Fooled Again are nothing short of magic. Daltrey performs the songs with the same energy you would expect of a frontman introducing it to a crowd at the peak of its popularity. Seated gigs are always a hit or miss, and with a reasonably polite crowd to have your arms crushed under, your legs folded like a car boot sale table on cheap, plastic chairs, the camaraderie of the audience is just as strong as that seen on stage. Covers of Paul Simon, Ray Davis, and Creedence Clearwater Revival are interspersed in a strong set which has a chatty Daltrey reminisce. But it never feels like nostalgia is going to overwhelm the set, and The Who frontman spends more time paying tribute to his friends in the industry and what they are now doing than he does his own music.

While parts of the show may highlight the dated fundamentals of crowd engagement, it is staggering what Daltrey can still do. He has one hell of a voice still, but takes a backseat for Simon Townshend’s excellent rendition of Going Mobile, a song Daltrey introduces as a track The Who has, for some reason, never played live. That is the point of these solo shows. A chance to shine a light on the rarer cuts, the beauties which are not able to be played in a set focused on crowd-pleasing hits. There are still those in this Piece Hall performance, but the more intimate choice of venue (compared to stadiums, that is) affords Daltrey an opportunity to dig deep in his discography. A few McVicar songs feature, and those are just as rapturously received and well-played as the fiddle solo highs of Baba O’Riley. Daltrey is, like Bruce Springsteen or Bob Dylan, set to go until he drops. How lucky gig-goers are.