So before we get to the meat of this post, I’ll start off by saying that this week’s #tbt was damn tough to come up with, and as you’ll notice, not strictly “metal”-related. (I’d argue that the body of John Entwistle’s work in The Who crushes any possible opposition on this front, but I’ll acknowledge all the same.)

See, normally for these posts, we check out the Twitter feed from the team over at This Day in Metal, who most of the time crush this kind of thing and give us at least 5-6 possible throwbacks to choose from. Today, however, they’ve largely been voicing their distaste for this year’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame nominees, which…for our purposes, is neither here nor there. I’m not bringing this up to get on their cases, but rather to explain why today’s post leans more classic rock than pure metal. Literally the only two items I could dig up were this, and the fact that Fabio Leone from Rhapsody of Fire turns 41 today. And since we’ve already done a #tbt for the “Rain of a Thousand Flames” video–a.k.a the only Rhapsody of Fire song/video worth remembering–here we are.

Now that I’ve thoroughly defended a decision that had met exactly zero pushback, it’s Entwistle time, kids! Happy birthday, John! As a tribute to the late master of the low-end, let’s take a look back at his solo from “5:15” during the band’s 2000 performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

For me, this has everything you’d want from Entwistle as a bassist. It’s far from the most technical bass solo you’ll ever hear, but at the same time, it’s so perfectly tasteful. Just by listening, you can’t help but form a mental list of all the great bass players he helped shape over the years–people like Chris Squire, Geddy Lee, you name it. Incredibly influential bass player from an incredibly influential band–how they carried on following his passing in 2002 is a little beyond me, but then again, people were saying the same thing after Keith Moon’s death in 1978, so who the hell knows.

I guess the point with all this is: John Entwistle would have been 70 today, so play this, play some other live Who tracks, just play some damn Who stuff in general and pay him some tribute. There’s your throwback…check back later on for Quickies, once Corey gets back from Boston!

-Dan

Live. Love. Plow. Horns Up.