The Who Come to a Fork in the Road
This poor hotel,” says Pete Townshend, gesturing at his spacious suite in the Navarro Hotel on New York’s posh Central Park South. ”Mr. Russell, the bloke that manages this hotel, welcomes Keith [Moon] like an old friend. And yet, if any hotel has suffered at Keith’s hands, it’s this place.
”Keith actually picked a hole through the wall. Bobby Pridden, our road manager, had the group’s record player in his room and he had a security bolt, a big hefty one, on his door. There was no way we could get in the door – we even got a key and couldn’t get in.
”Keith said, ‘I’m gonna fuckin’ get in there.’ He went into a closet and found a couple of loose pieces and started to pick. He sat there for two hours, picking at the bricks with a knife and his bare hands. And he finally got a brick out, and thrust his hand into the room. And started to pull other bricks out and finally got into the room – through the wall.”
This familiar tale belongs at the beginning, not because this is another story about the Who on tour, but because it isn’t. Even though Who Are You, the band’s first L.P. in three years, has just been released, they have no plans to go out on the road.
Nonetheless, Townshend, Moon and Roger Daltrey came to America in early August to promote the album. Only John Entwistle remained in England to wrap up the soundtrack for the first project produced by the Who‘s Shepperton Films studio, A documentary look at the groups career, The Kids Are Alright should be released around Christmas. But a film seems an inadequate substituie for a tour.
100 Greatest Artists – The Who
A short clip shown during Townshend’s and Moon’s appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America made it clear why touring is so essential for the Who. There was Roger Daltrey, his hair mod short, singing ”I Can’t Explain,” the group’s first hit single, at London’s Marquee club where the band got its professional start in 1964-’65.
The film clip is a perfect encapsulation of the spirit that has defined the Who for fifteen years, because, unlike any other band of its generation, the Who made their reputation performing, much more than recording. Partly this is because they recorded relatively few records: the Beatles made as many albums (fifteen) from 1964-’70 as the Who have made to date. The Rolling Stones and the Beatles are remembered for hit songs like ”Satisfaction” and ”She Loves You.” The Who are remembered for their performances: the early guitar-bashing in England, the climactic appearances at Monterey and Woodstock. Even Tommy, their rock opera, came fully to life only onstage.
Everyone recognizes this, from fans to the group itself. Moon and Daltrey speak as romantically of touring as other men do of licentious high-school dream dates. John Entwistle says frankly, ”It’s just not in me” to stop touring. Even Pete Townshend admits he’d love to find a way.
But Townshend, for now at least, remains adamantly against a tour. His reasons are complex, but in essence there are only two: his family and his hearing.
”The last three years [of relative inactivity by the Who] have been the happiest of my life as far as my family goes,” Townshend said on Good Morning America. And while Townshend is not deaf (yet), ”Electric guitar hurts my ears, It’s bad to the extent that if I’m subjected to really loud noise for a long time, I get a lot of pain. And, apparently, pain is the indication of further damage.”
(”Really loud noise for a long time” is, of course, an apt definition of a Who concert. As Townshend says of his guitar style, ”To some extent, the thing about that sound is the pain of it. The thing I used to adore was the fact that it hurt.”)
Still, the Who seem more like a band than they have in years. The conflicts between Daltrey and Townshend have been resolved – they speak of each other as friends rather than as enemies enjoying a temporary truce. Keith Moon seems on the way to recovery from whatever physical and mental demons have plagued him. And Who Are You points to greater musical integration as well: John Entwistle wrote three of its nine songs, and Daltrey sings two of those, although he has sung only two other Entwistle numbers in his career. The playing is grand in the way that Who’s Next was, which makes it ideal for onstage interpretation.
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