By Brian Crecente

Last night Harmonix made E3 history, hosting a private concert at LA's historic Orpheum Theater with The Who. Frontmen Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend took the stage to the thunderous applause of the more than 1,000 invited guests. The front six rows of the venue were packed with hand-picked VIP.

We landed a seat front-row center next to MTV Multiplayer's Tracey John, GameLife's Chris Kohler and analyst Michael Pachter thanks to a bit of VIP pass flashing and general running when the door opened.

When the lights flared up Townshend and Daltrey were joined by keyboardist John "Rabbit" Bundrick, bassist Pino Palladino, drummer Zak Starkey and guitarist Simon Townshend. The group worked through their music for an hour or two taking breaks to joke with the crowd and tease audience members.

At one point Townshend, who insisted on saying that Viacom was throwing the party, asked who in the audience was responsible for the color selection of the fret keys of the Rock Band guitars. When the designer, who was sitting in the front row, jumped up and waved his hands around, Townshend said the colors were awful.

Later Townshend said that everyone should buy their children the new Aerosmith Guitar Hero bundle, then a second later added, oh, that's the other one.

That's right, one of my bets came true. After the concert wrapped up a roadie throw out Starkey's drumsticks and I managed to snag one. Then, walking out of the venue I bumped into former AC/DC drummer Chris Slade and after talking to him for a few minutes, snagged a pic with him.
I think I can cross "best night ever" off my lists of things to do in my life.
Hit the jump to check out two very short video snippets of the group pumping out power rock. And then pause a moment for "it" which they totally killed with their curtain-dropping performance of Pinball Wizard.