Tire dealer promotions goin' mobile with The Who at Bridgestone's Super Bowl show

Who would have ever thought you’d be hearing the crunching power chords of The Who’s anti-establishment and anti-counterculture anthem “Won’t Get Fooled Again” as a lead-in to network television coverage of the National Football League?

Yet there’s The Who all over the airwaves – goin’ mobile in a big way – as a global tire manufacturer brings the band to Florida’s Dolphin Stadium and CBS for the Feb. 7 Bridgestone Super Bowl XLIV Halftime Show.

Stars of the 1960s British Invasion and still in the spotlight with an ongoing array of top-selling tunes, the presence of The Who at such a universally anticipated and watched event presents a host of promotional opportunities for creative tire dealers.

Last year’s Bridgestone-sponsored Super Bowl halftime show with Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band drew 151 million-plus American viewers in addition to international coverage. The 2010 edition will be beamed to more than 230 nations, and CBS reports that all but four of the available 30-second commercial slots have already been sold at fees ranging from $2.5 million to $3 million each.

A Bridgestone executive is effusive in extolling the entertainment choice for this year’s big game. “Emerging in the mid-1960s as a new and incendiary force in rock and roll, their brash style and poignant storytelling garnered them one of music’s most passionate followings,” he says, “with the legendary foursome blazing a searing new template for rock, punk and everything after.”

Although cutting-edge drummer Keith Moon and influential bassist John Entwistle are deceased, the surviving band members – Pete Townsend and Roger Daltrey with an augmented backing lineup – are certainly not an oldies act or long-in-the-tooth rock star poseurs. Townsend effectively dealt with that issue a long time ago by famously declaring that “I hope I die before I get old” in 1964’s “My Generation.”

Based on a lengthy career of trendsetting inventions and innovations, the impish, boisterous and brawling working class lads have presumably earned the public’s street cred to keep on performing for as long as they’re physically able to climb the stairs up to the stage.

Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame’s inaugural class in 1990, the band has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, placing 27 Top 40 singles in the U.S. and United Kingdom while achieving 17 Top Ten albums, including the groundbreaking rock opera Tommy in 1969 (a pioneer of the “concept album” concept), 1970’s raucous Live At Leeds, the masterpiece Who’s Next in 1971, followed by Quadrophenia in 1973, 1978’s Who Are You and the more recently acclaimed Endless Wire CD with new material.

In just the U.S., The Who has claimed five Multi-Platinum albums, 12 Platinums and 18 Golds. Last year Townsend and Daltrey became the first rock act ever to be awarded the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors.

The Who has a wealth of songs from which to choose for the Super Bowl gig, such as the crashing rendition of Eddie Cochran’s classic “Summertime Blues” and a seemingly endless catalogue of Townsend originals, including the chartbusting cuts of “I Can See For Miles,” “Goin’ Mobile,” “Magic Bus,” “I Can’t Explain,” “Happy Jack,” “5:15,” “Love Reign O’er Me,” anything from Tommy, “The Kids Are Alright,” “Behind Blue Eyes,” “Gettin’ In Tune,” “Baba O’ Riley” (aka “Teenage Wasteland”), “Substitute,” “You Better You Better You Bet” and “Who Are You?”

All these tunes add up to prodigious playlist of ideas for tire retailers wishing to hold a contest, sponsor a Who tribute-band performance or initiate other promotional tie-ins. It can easily be argued that The Who’s appeal cuts across just about any demographic – the hits were enjoyed by men and women, greasers and hippies and almost everyone else. Even easy-listening music fans can appreciate the tonal intricacies of the more sophisticated repertoire as so many of the songs have been covered by popular mainstream artists.

Clocking in at 8:31 in length, we’re unlikely to hear “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and Daltrey’s defining primal rock scream in its entirety at the Super Bowl, as it would eat up much of the allotted time. (Townsend reportedly penned the tune – with Moon devising that ferocious Armageddon-ish drum interlude – in the wake of 1969’s Woodstock to express dismay at the phony and authoritarian attitudes being displayed by global leaders and the protest movement alike: The late Abbie Hoffman of the Youth International Party (YIPPIE) had made the critical blunder of invading the stage to give a political speech in the middle of The Who’s headlining set; Townsend responded by whacking him upside the head with his Gibson guitar.)

If you happen to be a musical headbanger, or have customers who follow the hardcore genre, be aware that this is not your father’s rock band. These boys instigated punk back when the term was still being applied to the neighborhood bully down at the malt shop.

It was Moon, Entwistle, Daltrey and Townsend who debuted on pirate radio stations after being rejected by numerous record labels as being too raw and intense. They pioneered eardrum-busting concert hall volume levels that so frightened parents. Disputes over “creative differences” were settled by fistfights in the recording studio rather than lawsuits. Townsend came up with fuzz tones by shoving pencils through speaker cones, and he was also first with windmill strumming, open power chords and flying leaps across the stage. They integrated synthesizers into their songs when the devices were still experimental contraptions, included bluegrass fiddle in the rowdy rock mix (as heard in “Baba O’ Riley”), challenged the dynamics of melding electric and acoustic guitars (witness “Behind Blue Eyes”), and seamlessly shot into the high-brow symphonic realm with the extraordinary Tommy.

They cheerfully embraced with great gusto the early trappings of the rock star lifestyle, trashing hotel rooms, breaking things with a devil-may-care attitude and making outlandish remarks to the media. Townsend seemingly adopted the public persona of a curmudgeon even as a young man, sparking controversy with comments distaining hippies. The story goes that when Moon purposely drove a car into a motel swimming pool he explained away the incident by simply noting, “It’s good for me drummin’.”

(Behind the scenes, the band members were said to be meticulous about paying-in-full for any damage they caused to other people’s property.)

It would be shocking even today if The Who smashed all of its instruments at the Super Bowl. But for a number of years that’s exactly what the band did at each show. According to historical accounts, it started innocently enough in 1964 at London’s Railway Tavern when a leaping Townsend accidentally thrust his guitar neck through a low-hanging ceiling tile. In a moment of frustration he slammed the guitar down to the floor, drawing a rapturous reaction from the crowd. Egged on by the audience at the next gig, Moon busted up his drum kit and a performance staple was born – much to their annoyance as they soon grew tired of an expensive nightly ritual that a growing legion of fans had come to expect at every gig.

In the meantime, with Bridgestone’s halftime shows now having featured Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and The Who, could it be that the time may finally be right to bring out the tie-dyes for 2011 by showcasing the surviving members of the Grateful Dead?

For more information, visit www.bridgestone-firestone.com and www.thewho.com.