Who Hit NYC, On ‘Grammy Special’ Tonight

The Who hit New York City tonight (December 5th), but for those outside of the Big Apple a performance taped on Sunday night (December 2nd) from the band's Nashville performance will be aired tonight on CBS' The Grammy Nominations Concert Live. As with all their tours over the past decade, the Who's band -- second guitarist and Pete Townshend's younger brother Simon Townshend, bassist Pino Palladino, and drummer, and Ringo Starr's son, Zak Starkey -- are receiving raves for how they're handling the deeply complicated Quadrophenia material the Who is tackling in concert on this tour.

Simon Townshend, who is 15 years younger than Pete and was a die-hard Who fan growing up, was lucky enough to see the Who an incredible 36 times with Keith Moon on drums. He says that a new Who single was always an incredible thrill for him as a kid: "I'd be at school, listening to the radio and I didn't even know the Who had a record out. I'd be listening to the radio in. . . we have these guys that look after the school playground, called 'janitors,' and I'd be in there 'cause I used to hang out with them and listen to the radio and if a track would come on, and I liked it, I'd hope it was the Who. I'd hope it was them. And that happened with 'Join Together' and it happened with 'Pinball Wizard.' But with 'Pinball Wizard,' I think I knew it was them. 'Join Together,' I couldn't work it out whether it was, or not."