The Who performed Pete Townshend‘s solo track ‘Let My Love Open The Door’ for the first time in 33 years during a recent show in London.
The group played a special concert at the Royal Albert Hall last Friday night (March 25) in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust. Frontman Roger Daltrey is a patron of the charity and launched the TCT gig series back in 2000.
- READ MORE: The Who – ‘WHO’ review: 13 years since their last album, this stands up alongside their classics
As Stereogum reports, The Who delivered a stripped-back acoustic set that included a sprinkling of deep cuts and rarities from across the band’s catalogue. They also performed a solo Townshend song from his 1980 album ‘Empty Glass’.
“Well, this next song is definitely not a Who hit,” the guitarist told the crowd to introduce ‘Let My Love Open The Door’, which hadn’t been played by the group since 1989. “It’s a Pete hit.”
Townshend went on to talk about how the track featuring in Netflix‘s new Ryan Reynolds-starring sci-fi film, The Adam Project, led to it landing at Number 3 on the official Shazam Chart.
Check out fan-shot footage of the performance here:
Elsewhere, The Who offered up a live debut of ‘Beads On One String’ from their 2019 album ‘WHO’. Townshend and Daltrey recently shared a new video for the ‘Yaggerdang Remix’ of the song in support of Ukraine.
“It’s meant to be a song about how all of us with different religions could come together if you believe in something, and stand for one thing,” Townshend told the Royal Albert Hall audience.
“But this latest thing [the war in Ukraine] seems to have nothing to do with anybody’s god. I don’t know what it’s about.”
Last month, rumours emerged surrounding a potential new solo album from Townshend after he was spotted in the studio.
In a four-star review of ‘WHO’, NME said the record “either recaptures the band’s root ferocity or explores new territory with style”. It noted that “much of the record could stand proudly alongside [The Who’s] classics”, citing ‘All This Music Must Fade’, ‘Hero Ground Zero’ and ‘Detour’ as particular highlights.
Roger Daltrey said last March that he was reluctant to make another album with The Who, because there isn’t a “record market anymore”.
The post Watch The Who play Pete Townshend solo track for first time in 33 years appeared first on NME.
