This Who fan wouldn’t miss concert tonight

By Nancy Daly

Leader Staff Writer

The way reviewers in other cities tell it, fans of The Who are in for a treat when the legendary rock group performs at 8 p.m. tonight at Rupp Arena.

Sets, lighting and sound have been terrific, according to press accounts, and high-energy shows lasting more than two hours have been even more special because audiences know that this is the last chance to see The Who.

Or is it?

Clark Henrickson isn’t so sure about that. The University of Kentucky art student has an encyclopedic knowledge of The Who, the band he calls the most important in rock and roll. Looking at the patterns in the band’s 20-year history, he finds the idea of a permanent break-up doubtful.

“I would never say it’s really the end of The Who,” said Henrickson, whose slight resemblance to guitarist Pete Townshend recently earned him first place at a look-alike contest at a Lexington bar.

“They may split for a while but I think they’re going to realize none of them has turned out anything solo that would come up to par with what they do together.

“I consider (lead singer) Roger Daltrey’s solo albums to be atrocious, even though I own one. And (bassist John) Entwistle goes off the deep end too. They need each other to fight off their worst tendencies.”

Henrickson has a tendency to judge The Who as analytically as the harshest rock critics. At 22, he’s a fan but not a fanatic.

That may be because he’s followed the band since he was 7 years old. His family had just returned from living in Indonesia on an exchange program and he remembers hearing I Can See For Miles on the radio one day.

“I started paying really close attention to them when I was about nine. That’s when I bought my first album and it just went from there.”

That album, Happy Jack, was a minor-selling prelude to Tommy, the 1969 rock opera LP that sold 4 million copies – a huge amount even by today’s standards – and solidified American acceptance of the British rock act.

“The main thing is that they’re continually pushing,” said Henrickson of his attraction to The Who. “They’re pushing the conventions a lot of the time.”

Henrickson stuck by The Who through the ’70s because there wasn’t much in the way of new music that appealed to him. Also, he plays for a Lexington band called The Deceptors which covers a lot of ’60s music.

“One of the reasons I started off playing the bass was John Entwistle. If I had to say I had a hero in music it would be Entwistle just for his abilities.”

Violence and tragedy seem to be strains that run through the entire history of The Who, the most extreme example being the deaths of 11 persons before The Who concert in Cincinnati in 1979. The victims died of asphyxiation after thousands of general-admission ticket holders attempted to enter a small number of open doors at Riverfront Coliseum.

“I think it could have happened to anybody that people get fanatical about,” said Henrickson. “I think the same thing could have happened at a Led Zeppelin concert if it’d been general admission to an indoor arena, in the cold weather. It was a combination of a whole series of unfortunate incidents.”

Arena security and seating arrangements have been altered nationwide as a result of the Cincinnati tragedy. A reserved-seating policy has been in effect at Rupp Arena since the Lexington facility opened in 1976. And in work with the UK concert committee, Henrickson has helped to maintain crowd control at smaller campus concerts.

Tonight Henrickson will see The Who for the third time when they perform with the Detroit band The Rockets. Henrickson says it should be a much better show than their 1980 Lexington visit. After all, it is their farewell appearance – maybe.