Downloaded from MY-SUBS.MX
Official MY-SUBS movies site: MY-SUBS.MX
["Happy Jack" plays]
["Pinball Wizard" plays]
["Squeeze Box" plays]
* I'm not tryin' to cause A big sensation *
* Talking 'bout my generation *
[Roger Daltrey] Whatever happened that day when Keith Moon joined
John, Pete and myself on the stage,
something happened.
There are billions of people on this planet.
What the fuck put four
total individuals together
on the stage in Greenford to make this music?
What the fuck did that?
["Won't Get Fooled Again" plays]
[Pete Townshend] Towards the end of the war, everything was secret.
You never knew whether you were winning or losing,
and most of the time they were saying you're winning when you felt you were losing.
I was born into that world.
I was born in the hour that Albert Speer was arrested.
He was Hitler's premiere architect.
I don't mean war architect. He was an actual architect.
My father got these two messages.
One was "Speer's been captured," and the other was,
"It's a boy, Mr. Townshend."
When I think about my childhood in the late '40s, '50s,
it's almost like the world was black-and-white.
It is very weird.
Very Spartan living.
We were still on food rationing.
No cars in the street.
[John Entwistle] After the war, there was bombed-out buildings
that had loads of bricks, so we didn't need Lego.
We had the real thing.
Practically everybody I know that I grew up with,
if they were wild and crazy and weird, or in a band,
the chances were that they had some weird shit happen to them when they were kids.
My parents were both working dance-band musicians,
I grew up with the music of my father, which was the Basie Band,
the Ellington Band, and great singers like Sarah Vaughan
and Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald.
And I felt I couldn't even begin
to emulate or occupy their territory.
We were all interested in traditional jazz at the time.
To me, trad jazz was something
that was already a rebellious threat to the kind of serene
dance-hall dance music that my father played.
The first connection between the four talents of The Whocame in 1959,
at a West London boys' school.
I met John at Acton County Grammar School.
Big guy. Funny.
Very sharply dressed.
John and Pete didn't really get to know one another well
until they started up playing instruments together.
Right from the beginning and right the way through our life,
he was a great musical ally.
-Right over here, and you're, um-- -John.
You're John? And you're from-- London too.
From London too? Yeah.
He was calling himself John Allison
because his girlfriend was, of course, called Allison.
We thought "Entwistle" was a really strange name
for a band member.
And we tried John Brown, and we thought, well, no.
He's John Entwistle.
["Summertime Blues" plays]
The Who wouldn't have been The Who without Entwistle.
He would fill the sound up with the bass.
If you actually listen to any Who record
and you isolate the bass, it's pretty astonishing what he's doing.
It's nothing to do with what a normal bass player would do.
* I'm a-gonna raise a fuss I'm a-gonna raise a holler *
Entwistle stood still.
You had Pete swinging his arm around like a windmill.
You had Roger throwing his microphone around all over the place.
Keith smacking away at the drums, and Dad stood away in the corner playing quietly.
* The boss said * * No dice, son You gotta work late *
I used to get cross
that they didn't show John so much on the television.
The cameras were always on Pete and Roge.
He was, like, the central point in the spinning world, you know?
I think a lot of people don't understand is that what he was doing
is he was playing like a Bach organ.
It was huge, massive, rich sound.
So I used to find my way inside there.
I used to sit with John and sit inside,
and he would follow me and support me, and we'd play together.
John had such facility as a player, and really very unique.
I don't think anyone had really gone into lead bass playing.
He wasn't actually a quiet guy.
He was just a very sardonic guy.
Very cynical. He was very funny.
But in that sort of laid-back way.
Entwistle was uncompromising
in leading his own life, you know.
Afraid John takes after me.
I like music, dancing, enjoying myself.
Drinking. I love partying.
I never, ever felt that
John had any addictive problems at all, except one,
which began with an H.
It's a big shop in London called Harrods.
That was his one addiction.
He could never buy one pair of shoes.
He always bought a dozen in each color, and the shirts and the trousers.
He was certainly well dressed.
Don't know about that skeleton fuckin' leather thing though
that John Entwistle was-- What's all that about?
He was very musical right from the age of three.
He knew all the pop songs that were in the charts,
and he'd sing for hours.
My first date with John was to go to a Boys' Brigade thing
at the Albert Hall.
He used to play the bugle.
He joined the school orchestra.
He wanted to play the trumpet, but they didn't have any left.
The only instrument left was the French horn.
He practiced in the loo.
He became quite proficient.
John Entwistle was the only one of us
that kind of had any musical training at all.
He made his own first bass with his own hands, you know.
What he realized was that he had the power
to change the fuckin' instrument.
You know, you don't change the trumpet.
But the bass guitar was relatively new.
He started to play it differently, hold it differently.
Being on stage with a guitar, with a big amplifier,
it became his voice.
I was walking down the road one day, coming home from work.
I worked in a sheet-metal work factory.
I noticed this guy coming towards me who I recognized from being at school.
And across his shoulder, he's got this strange-looking instrument.
So I said to him, you know, stupidly, "What you got there?"
He said, "It's a bass."
They all went to the same school.
Roger was at the same school, but he got expelled.
I think he was accused of setting fire to the school.
Roger was a bit of a tearaway.
It's been said that I was a bully later on in my school career,
but I don't think I actually was.
I just loved to fight.
Still do.
When I first met Roger,
he was one of the most powerful, charismatic,
and literally powerful men I'd ever come across.
You know, he was like Elvis Presley.
Elvis, to me, was the guy I wanted to be.
But realistically, the guy who showed me
that I could, instead of just dreaming about this
could actually go out there and do it, was a guy called Lonnie Donegan.
* Sweet 16, goes to church Just to see the boys *
Lonnie Donegan was a big influence on a lot of people.
It's the rhythm, the beat and the freshness of it.
* She's only putting on The style *
* Yeah, putting on the agony Putting on the style *
It had that kind of rock-and-roll sort of pace to it.
Skiffle is really basically
early American folk songs.
It was so easy. Anyone could make a skiffle group.
You could do it with home objects.
For drums, we had an old washing board.
Tea chest bass, which is basically a tea chest
with a piece of string and a broomstick.
It lifted the music from, like, big bands
into people's parlors.
You could do it yourself, like.
Every street in Shepherd's Bush had it's own skiffle group.
On Fielding Road, Roger Daltrey founded The Detours
with a guitar he made himself at the sheet-metal factory.
At the age of 17 or 18, you know,
he was the king of the neighborhood.
So anyway, I'm walking home from work one night, and immediately
I kind of felt a bonding with this guy.
So I said, "You in a band?" And he said, "Yeah, I'm in a band."
I said, "Have you got any work?"
He said, "No." I said, "Well, we have."
I said, "Do you get paid for your work?" He said, "No."
I said, "We do."
I was lying.
I said, "We're looking for a bass player. Would you like to join?"
Shortly after, Reg Bowen on rhythm guitar left the band,
and John said, "Well, I know someone who's a good rhythm player."
So we said, "Well, bring him along."
John was very important for me because he never let me go.
He could've done. A couple of the other guys did let me go.
John was very encouraging to me and nurturing
and used to constantly say to me, "No, you're a good musician."
He was just vital to me in those days.
By 1962, The Detours were playing pubs as a five-piece--
John on bass, Doug Sandom on the drums,
Pete played rhythm guitar, Colin Dawson singing,
Roger playing lead guitar.
It was Roger's band. The Detours were Roger's band.
Roger was the driving force. Roger supplied all the energy,
and he drove the van and picked people up and arranged everything.
* Some way someday *
* I'll find a way *
* To make you see my way *
In '63, Roger gave up the guitar,
fired the singer and took over as front man.
When there was just the three of us as a band--
just two instruments, Pete and John--
the only thing with strings was Pete and John--
and I remember saying to him, "It sounds fucking great."
* You see my way *
[Muddy Waters] * Oh, yeah *
* Everything gon' be all right This mornin' *
["Mannish Boy" plays]
The other guys in the band were working, and I was at art school.
I was on a grant. I was having an easy life.
I was smoking dope, listening to, you know, records.
I met Pete when we were in art school,
and I didn't even know he was in a band.
We'd got this flat that had belonged to
this American guy, Tom Wright.
Tom Wright had a huge blues archive from the States.
* Now, when I was a young boy *
* At the age of five *
All that early blues stuff-- John Lee Hooker,
Howlin' Wolf, Jimmy Reed.
["Shame Shame Shame" plays]
All those young kids loved the blues,
because the working classes are in a similar sociological position,
you know what I mean, to the blacks in America.
My father was in the war.
His ship gets torpedoed.
My mother, who is pregnant, goes to the shipping office,
as she did every week, to get his salary.
And they say, "Oh, no, there's no salary this week, Mrs. Stamp.
The ship's gone down."
Right? So that was the status of the working class, right?
[Jimmy Reed] * Well, it's a shame Shame, shame *
* Shame, shame on you *
We identified with American blues
and those early black American artists.
We started listening to that and thought, "This is great."
And we started playing the blues. I played the harmonica.
Through that music, we became aware
of the limitations of our drummer.
Doug Sandom was fired in April of 1964.
* Oh, it's a shame on you *
We got a session drummer in for a couple of gigs we had lined up.
And we were playing one night at the Oldfield Hotel in Greenford.
All I remember is I was standing onstage
getting ready to take a break, when a-a...
gingerbread man appeared in the audience in front of me,
looking up at me with these great, big puppy dog brown eyes.
He wanted to be a Beach Boy,
so he bought some hydrogen peroxide and bleached his hair.
It come out bright orange.
And he came up and, with all the arrogance in the world, said,
"I hear you're looking for a drummer.
Well, I'm much better than the one you've got."
He sat down.
Pete starts off with a pick screeching down the string.
Gets into a very heavy riff.
All of a sudden, it's like a jet engine
started up at the back of me.
It was like magic.
All of a sudden, it-- everything worked.
We were just astonished.
This kid was the missing link,
and it was obvious from the first minute of him playing with us.
The whole dance floor stopped and started looking. It was extraordinary.
You didn't watch drummers. He was the only drummer I know that you'd watch.
Moon was a star.
["Who Are You" plays]
He was a shooting star. That's what he was.
He was clearly an alcoholic, an addict, a sex addict.
* Who are you? *
* Who, who, who, who *
On the one hand, he was this lunatic who, you know,
couldn't wait to get on a drum kit and just explode with it.
* Who are you? *
And on the other hand, he was a very quiet, saddened person.
* Who are you? *
He clearly had tremendous esteem issue problems.
He was a complex little ball of difficulty.
Usually leave and get drunk.
He wasn't like that as a boy. That's what I can't understand.
He always did as he was told.
He was very quiet, and I had no problem with him at all.
He was a good boy.
By the time he was 16,
Moon was playing American surf music in a band called The Beachcombers.
The Beachcombers was the first band
that I remember him having at home and setting up in the front room.
Keith liked the Beach Boys.
I f-- didn't like 'em.
* Fun, fun, fun till your daddy Takes the T-Bird away *
You know, and they would sing away.
-* Barbara Ann Ba-Ba, Ba-Barbara Ann * -* Barbara Ann *
* Ba-Ba-Ba Ba-Barbara Ann *
* You got me rockin' And a-rollin', rockin' And a-reelin', Barbara Ann *
But he liked to do those backing vocals--
you know, the girl-y backing vocals in a lot of their songs.
The other thing that's really important, of course,
is that Keith was a very lyrical drummer.
Keith was like an orchestra on the drums.
He wasn't a time drummer, like, "dum-dum-dum."
It was, like, all around the kit.
Moon was doing things that
just made us all work a hundred percent harder.
Not faster, not slower.
A hundred percent harder.
In late April 1964, he joined The Detours
and started playing the blues.
* Hey, fellas Have you heard the news? *
When you've got a 12-bar sequence, it can become monotonous.
Moonie had a very short attention span when it came to boredom.
He started to double up the beat.
And that led to Pete doubling the guitar.
It led John to play more jazzy bits in between.
And from that, what we became famous for evolved.
That's when The Who started to have its own identity.
We played the blues, but we'd put our own stamp on it.
We'd been The Detours for quite a while, and we'd built up
quite a following in West London on the pub circuit.
John Entwistle, he'd heard about this band
who'd got a record out in America called The Detours.
So we sat around and had this think tank
in Sunnyside Road, where Barney and I had a flat.
And the band never came back there.
I don't think they'd ever been there before,
because Pete and I were art students smoking dope,
and they didn't approve.
And we were just jokingly throwing names around.
We were trying to be avant-garde or something.
Think of, like, The Nothing or names like that.
I came up with The Hair.
'Cause everything was about hair at the time.
And I said The Who, 'cause basically I was just thinking of it on posters.
You know, one of those very quick conversations.
"The Hair." "The Who."
And everybody was laughing at each one.
And for a while, it was kind of a bit of a war.
"Well, we could call it The Hair and The Who." And it sounded like a pub.
But The Who was something we came back to.
It didn't take very long for us to carry our audience into the change.
Within two weeks, they'd forgotten about The Detours
and they knew that it was The Who.
* Dressed right For a beach fight *
* But I just can't explain *
We were the first teenagers after the war.
All we wanted to do was just
liberate ourselves, really, and have fun.
South Coast police have warned that if the fights
between rival gangs of mods and rockers continue...
We used to go to Brighton, areas like that,
it was traditional that you would end up clashing.
We were teenagers together. We were mods.
It was all about a pop-art gang culture.
We were called mods 'cause we were modernist.
There was a type of, like, "fuck you,"
rebellious sort of behavior about the mod kids.
It was very much, "Let's get out of this class system."
The original mods were very smart.
Short Italian jackets, tight trousers, winklepicker shoes.
Perfectly tailored sort of skintight, sort of like sharkskin suit,
with a little mascara on and a special haircut on Saturday nights.
We spent all of our money on clothes. We were like little peacocks.
* I'm the hippiest number In town *
* And I'll tell you why And I'll tell you why *
* I'm the snappiest dresser Right down to My inch-wide tie *
Along came this guy called Pete Meaden. He was a publicist.
And he transformed the band.
He certainly had a finger on the pulse
of this embryo of a fashion seed.
And Pete Meaden had this theory that the mods
were like the new religion, the new army,
the new everything,
and projected that onto us as individuals.
He said, "Get out there, cut your hair, go out Carnaby Street,
buy all the clever gear," and all of a sudden we're a mod band.
Pete Meaden also said, "You've gotta change the name-- The Who."
And in that sense, he was right in getting us to be mods,
but he was wrong in changing the name The Who to The High Numbers.
We kept seeing these posters for The High Numbers, "Who" in brackets.
They used to play in West Hampstead, the Railway Club.
And it was a little hall, tiny little shabby hall.
The Who came up as The High Numbers.
We didn't know who they were. We just went up there.
And the drummer was absolutely mental.
* Gather round My swingin' friends *
* Let me forget My hurtin' tears *
* About the only girl I ever loved *
* The only one, baby I, I gotta dance *
* Just to keep from crying *
* Gotta dance Just to keep from crying *
* Whoa-oa, do the fly The flop, the twist *
* Everybody It goes like this *
* You gotta dance Got me swayin' all right *
* Gotta dance Got me swayin', all right *
* Do the bird, the fly *
* Come on, gang, you know Bye, bye, bye, oh, yeah *
They were amazing. It was nothing like the Beatles.
Even the Stones. It was nothing like that.
And they were playing music that you didn't hear very often--
Tamla-Motown and blues.
They were a mod band, and I was a mod.
* Well, baby, so *
* You know it's all right *
When I met Kit, we decided to start to come up with
an idea to make a film.
We came up with a concept that we would find a group,
we would manage the group to success,
and we would all the time film it.
This was the idea.
Kit and I, we went up and down England looking for a group.
We couldn't find anyone to put in the film, basically, until we saw The High Numbers.
* Let me tell you 'bout Ooh Poo Pah Doo *
* Baby, they call me the most *
* Yeah, Ooh Poo Pah Doo *
* Baby, call me the most *
Lambert said immediately he knew that was the band he was looking for.
* And I won't stop tryin' *
* Till I create A disturbance in your mind *
We met Lambert and Stamp, and the first thing they wanted to do,
they loved everything else about us except the name.
And then we told them we used to be called The Who. They went, "Great!"
They were very individual.
They didn't really get along, you know, that personally.
I'd been in a gang in my adolescence. It wasn't that different.
It just came across, not antisocial,
but they weren't there to try to please people.
They were there to do what they were gonna do,
and if you liked it, that's up to you.
Pete was using these very high-volume amplifiers.
He would, because of the power in the amplifier, create feedback.
He did this thing where he used to lift the guitar like this.
We had a very low ceiling there.
I used to bang it to make it go boing, boing, boing, boing.
And the guitar neck went through the ceiling.
When it broke, I thought, well, I may as well finish it off.
We just stood there. "What is going on here? It's great."
I mean,
nobody had ever smashed anything on a stage.
I saw Keith looking at me.
Next week, I start banging my other guitar
and immediately the drums were over, sticks through...
Pete said afterwards, "Once I knew
that Moonie was with me, then I would do it again."
The guitar became, when it was electrified,
in my case, an instrument of control,
aggression, latent violence.
People say to me, "It's just stagecraft, isn't it?
Just showing off, smashing your guitar."
To me it was far, far, far more than that.
At art school, Pete and Barnesy
had attended lectures by Gustav Metzger,
a German artist who destroyed his creations
as a political protest against nuclear weapons.
Gustav Metzger came to my college to do lectures.
It was called The Destruction in Art symposium.
Yoko Ono did that thing where she had her clothes cut up,
and he slashed his way through a canvas with a samurai sword,
and next thing I knew, I'm breaking up guitars at gigs.
I thought it was a bit sort of airy-fairy, know what I mean?
It was a bit sort of like, why bother?
You're fucking angry, you're smashing your guitar up. It looks great.
It does suggest the rage that we all feel.
It really did annoy me that the visual
kind of took over from what was really going on.
I'd even have the guys in the band going,
"What a lot of pompous, pretentious drivel."
And I'd go, "No, it's auto-destructive art."
Pete was, even in those days, in a class of his own.
It was this act, you know, smashing up the instruments, feedback,
Pete's windmilling arm.
He did this sort of thing that the kids called the Birdman.
Lambert and Stamp got us a gig at the Marquee in the West End of London,
and Kit had this poster made of Pete with the guitar
in the bird-like...
sideways and a profile of his nose.
Fabulous. Absolutely classic.
You could not ignore that poster. It was like, "What is The Who?"
["Heat Wave" plays]
Within a month, the queues would be
all the way down Wardour Street, and they would be turning thousands of people away.
It was incredible.
I've got to admit that I felt that we were special.
* Whenever she calls my name *
* Yeah, yeah, yeah I can't explain *
* I feel, I feel *
* Yeah, I feel This burning flame *
It's to do with attitude.
It's like, you can hit your hand like that.
That's a tempo.
Or you can hit it like this.
Now, it's two totally different attitudes.
The tempo hasn't changed at all.
And The Who always did it with that attitude of drive.
* Oh, yeah, oh, yeah *
* Heat wave * * Burnin' in my heart *
I remember one thing that we were very much aware of
was that we were still copying other people's songs.
* Heat wave *
By 1964, The Beatles were revolutionizing
popular music with their songwriting.
The Rolling Stones and the Kinks joined the British invasion of America
by recording original material.
* Girl You really got me going *
* You got me so I don't know What I'm doing *
We needed a songwriter in the group, and Pete turned out to be one.
I listened to a couple of Kinks songs and just produced this rhythm.
["I Can't Explain" plays]
* Got a feeling inside * * Can't explain *
* Certain kind * * Can't explain *
* I feel hot and cold * * Can't explain *
- * Down in my soul, yeah * - * Can't explain *
Unlike The Kinks, what on the surface appears to be
a very frilly little pop song
is a much, much bigger statement from the vocal--
"I've got a feeling inside I can't explain."
And you could see that Townshend as a writer had a huge potential.
'Cause he wasn't going the normal way that pop songs go.
It was going internal.
* Can't explain I think it's love *
* Try to say it to you When I feel blue *
* But I can't explain *
Back in those early days, I thought, "I'm not gonna write songs forever.
This is boring." You know.
I really thought "Can't Explain" was quite childish.
Pete's home-recorded demo of the song would get them signed.
He was 19.
He had it on tape, which I played over the phone
to Shel Talmy.
The demo I heard was about a minute and ten seconds long.
Probably safe to say in about the first, uh,
30 to 45 seconds, I said, "Yes."
I said "I will get us a deal."
Kit told us this recording deal.
And, I mean, I'm a Shepherd's Bush boy. You know, work the markets.
When Kit told us our percentage,
it had something like a couple of cents on the end of it.
When Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp
were managing the band, they got a very bad deal.
I went round to all the record shops,
gave them free copies, gave them posters,
and helped push it that way.
But then luckily Radio Caroline played it.
* Caroline The sound of ignition *
* Caroline! *
["I Can't Explain" plays]
Twelve midnight tonight, Steve Young along
on The Curly-Headed Kid Show until 3 a.m.
* Got a feeling inside * * Can't explain *
Radio Caroline was the first of the pirate radio stations.
'Cause radio was controlled in England by the BBC.
And suddenly these ships out of England jurisdiction
started to pump the music out into England,
and it took off like a rocket.
The truth is, without pirate radio,
the English invasion and all that pop scene would not have happened.
* Can't explain I think it's love *
* Try to say it to you When I feel blue *
* But I can't explain *
Released January 15, 1965,
"I Can't Explain" would climb to number eight
on the New Musical Express chart.
I was driving over Hammersmith flyover
and heard "Can't Explain" on the radio
and thought, "Wow," you know.
"I've got a commission, I've got a patron. This is art."
Brunswick Records sold 104,000 copies of the single.
The boys made £250 each.
* Said I can't explain *
It was chaos, 'cause we were smashing up all this equipment, and I had no money.
I used to take all Pete's guitars and in between a show, putting 'em together.
While one was being glued,
the other one would be all set from the day before.
And the main thing was keep the band working.
- * I can go any way * - * Without you *
- * I can live anyhow * - * Without you *
* I can go anywhere *
In those days, it wasn't uncommon for us to do a show at 8:00 till 9:00,
travel 150 miles,
and then do another show at midnight till 1:00.
We used to take amphetamines.
I discovered that taking amphetamines didn't go with being a good singer.
* Oh, C *
* C.C. Rider *
* See what you have done now *
They pilled up like no tomorrow,
and their playing became just a noise.
Tempos went out the window,
volumes went out the window.
And everything we worked to be good at
suddenly disappeared out the window due to amphetamines.
So it all came to a head at one show
where I just gave up onstage, left the stage.
Went back to the dressing room, got the bag of amphetamines.
I mean, these guys. Flushed 'em down the toilet.
Moon went up like a rocket and hit me with a tambourine.
I laid into Moonie and ended up in a real good punch-up.
The roadies pulled us apart, of course.
But the damage had been done.
Basically, I was thrown out the band.
At that moment, I didn't give a fuck,
'cause if that was gonna be the band
as they had been on amphetamines, it wasn't worth being in anyway.
He had been this sort of tough guy, boss of the group.
Roger puts this band together and then finds the three dwarfs
that he's brought in to support him suddenly sort of leaving him behind.
It was the first time in my life that I realized that
I loved something else other than myself.
And I thought, if I'm being thrown out for being like I was,
then I'll have to change, because the band is more important to me than anything.
After about four weeks, they came back and said,
"Look, you're back in the band, but you're on probation.
And, uh,
one more outburst like that, and you're out."
Where's the place, Kit? I have absolutely no idea.
They're going to find it.
Four weeks after the blow-up in Copenhagen,
The Who returned to the studio to record Pete's latest creation.
When you're a kid and you,
and you pick up a guitar for the first time, you know,
you just want to make that sound.
["My Generation" plays]
* People try to put us d-down *
* Talking 'bout my generation *
* Just because we get around *
* Talking 'bout my generation *
"My Generation" was the song
that I felt an immediate sort of thing for.
* I hope I die Before I get old *
This had to be the essence of The Who.
* This is my generation *
* This is my generation, baby *
I can remember the "My Generation" session very clearly,
because it was so unusual, the fact that he stuttered on it.
I mean, I thought that was absolutely brilliant.
* I'm not tryin' to cause A big s-sensation *
Roger's got a story about the stutter, and so has Chris Stamp.
They're both well out of order.
The stutter came from John Lee Hooker.
It was to do with the pilled-up mod
and the old blues stutter and so on.
And when I put it on at the first demo, it was partly there.
And Chris Stamp said, "What's that?"
And I said, "I'm stuttering."
And I think maybe he didn't realize that I meant to stutter.
I don't remember it being on the demo. It might have been.
My memory's not that good on it.
Does it-- Does it really matter?
* My generation *
* This is my generation, baby *
I marveled at that bass line.
Very flashy, very effective and completely original.
I don't know where it came from.
It was fantastic.
Amazing, the bass solo in "My Generation."
If you could write that into words, that's what you'd have on your gravestone.
* People try to put us d-down *
* Talking 'bout my generation *
* Just because We g-get around *
* Talking 'bout my generation *
We're talking about very, very early days here.
I think back to those days, and I just--
I think it was really painful.
* This is my generation *
We hadn't really respected the difficulties that Roger had.
It's wrong for me to say this, but, you know...
Keith was a genius, John was a genius,
I was certainly on the edge of it.
You know, Roger was a singer. That was it.
I just decided within myself
that I would never let them--
whatever they did to me, whatever they did--
I wouldn't ever react like that again to them.
And I became a completely different guy,
as far as that's concerned.
* This is my generation *
But I struggled more than anything
to find a voice, a real voice for this band.
* Talking 'bout my generation * * This is my generation *
* I don't mind *
* Other guys dancing With my girl *
* That's fine *
* I know them all Pretty well *
* But I know sometimes *
* I must get out in the light *
* Better leave her behind *
* With the kids They're alright *
* The kids are alright *
Our ambitions in those days were very, very simple-- to be rich and famous.
We made no excuses for it.
We just got out of having our ass hanging out of our trousers.
I don't make any apologies for wanting to be rich and famous.
Thank you very much.
* I was born with A plastic spoon in my mouth *
* The north side of my town Faced east *
* And the east Was facing south *
The Who played 60 shows
through the first 90 days of 1966.
And we have got for you the most controversial group in England!
-Ladies and gentlemen, The Who! -The Who!
-Les Who!
-The Who! -The Who! -The Who!
* One girl was called Jean Marie *
* Another little girl Was called Felicity *
It used to feel to me that the band was doomed.
You know, I'm going off with this fucking horrible band of yobboes,
you know, to Germany and to Sweden and to--
and with people with whom I had absolutely
nothing in common whatsoever-- nothing.
They were at each other a lot.
The Who was built on competition.
The competition was horrendous on and off the stage.
Then it got great, because it became wonderfully sort of on edge because of that.
You could be watching The Who in that '66-'67 period when they were gigging,
and in the middle of a show, suddenly Pete would get the guitar
and whack it around Roger's head-- It was fantastic.
Everyone was really on edge watching them all the time, you know.
* I want to play cricket On the green *
* Ride my bike Across the street *
* Cut myself and see my blood *
* I want to come home All covered in mud *
* I'm a boy, I'm a boy But my mom won't admit it *
* I'm a boy, I'm a boy I'm a boy *
Roger talks now very romantically about those days,
like it was some kind of magic.
I don't think there was a lot of magic. What there was was a lot of brute force.
* I'm a boy *
Nobody knew what they were doing.
Those bands were managed by kids.
They didn't have a fuckin' clue what they were doing either.
In March of '66, The Who and their management
broke their contract with producer Shel Talmy
and began making their own records.
Very early on, Kit and I realized
that if we weren't in control of the recording
and how it went and what happened,
it would just be hopeless.
We would lose this gigantic piece
of what the destiny of the group was.
And so we had to get out of that contract.
Lambert and Stamp started their own company, Track Records.
I was like the executive producer.
Kit was the overall sort of musical director.
Day to day, right, in the studio.
* I used to wake up In the morning *
* I used to feel so bad *
Kit Lambert-- he had great ideas,
but he wasn't really technically very good.
Kit was the ultimate
Barnum & Bailey con man in a lot of ways.
He would bluster his way through things, you know.
He had a lot of front and courage in that way.
Big fucking pain in the ass, you know, in the studio.
But he made it fun.
* Pictures of Lily * I can do it if-- you know, once I get used to sort of--
Just do it with confidence.
Just hit it, do you know?
Keith, when you hit the very high note, back off a bit
because you're really piercing because of the height of the thing.
So you keep jumping on John's--
John's usually louder
than everyone else anyway, you know.
And if anyone needs backing up, it's sort of me, you know.
You'll cut through everything anyway on that note.
Oh! Oh!
Kit Lambert's father, Constant Lambert,
created the Royal Ballet.
Created the Royal Ballet.
Kit had gone into film because he didn't want to be
anything to do with music.
And suddenly, you know, life rips him back in
right in the middle of music, only a different type.
* And I ask you, hey, mister Have you ever seen *
* Pictures of Lily? *
I would say to Kit, "I really want to write a fuckin' opera.
I don't want to write rock songs all the time."
he constantly encouraged me on the basis of his background.
* Her man's been gone *
* For nearly a year *
* He was due home yesterday *
* But he ain't here *
It was called a mini-opera, "A Quick One While He's Away,"
which is an English way of saying, you know,
you have a quick fuck while the husband's away, right?
Do you know what I mean? That was the story.
* Down your street, your crying Is a well-known sound *
It was a big operatic piece
told in these sort of six or seven
one-minute or two-minute pieces of song.
* We have a remedy You'll appreciate *
* No need to be so sad He's only late *
Kit kept saying to me, "My father, Constant Lambert, would've loved The Who."
So he was very supportive, and that's how that grew.
Probably the most important relationship
that Kit and Pete had was each other.
* You are forgiven *
During the recording session for A Quick One,
Lambert introduced the band to one of the first artists
signed by the new Track Records.
He came to the studio before he became
the legendary Jimi Hendrix,
and he was just a guitarist in a soul band.
* Forgiven, forgiven *
You're forgiven.
* Run, run, run *
We'd always been looking at the United States,
because that was sort of like the home
of the music that we loved.
They just wanted to crack America, and just toured and toured and toured.
The Who were a brand that represented Britishness
and everything that London stood for.
They wore it on their backs for their British invasion.
* You better run, run, run *
* Run, run, run *
We couldn't just come over here and make a couple of hit tunes, like pop hits.
If they took The Who, they had to take the whole package.
In March of 1967,
they played a nine-day showcase in New York City.
Three months later, they went with their new label-mate to Monterey, California.
* If you're going *
* To San Francisco *
Monterey was a big one for us.
Before we even got to Monterey, Monterey was built up
in my imagination as an enormous event.
Worst thing about Monterey was we found out from one of our ex-roadies
that Hendrix was gonna steal our act.
Jimi was out of his brain on acid
and wouldn't discuss who would go on first.
It wasn't that we didn't want to follow him.
We just wanted to get our act, you know, done first.
We were kind of choked up
because we were in debt because we smashed our guitars,
and then suddenly someone was gonna come along from nowhere
and steal it in front of all those people.
I'd like to introduce you to an act
who have been passed by slightly in America, but they won't be after this.
This is The Who, this one.
["My Generation" plays]
-* People try to put us down * -* Talking 'bout my generation *
They played with kind of a sense of abandon
in a way it hadn't been done before.
I mean, the absolute abandon.
* Yeah, I hope I die Before I get old *
It was a sort of exorcism.
The performance just went off into
a kind of emotional meltdown, in a sense,
which I don't think anyone had ever seen before.
The visual was a ritualistic slaughter of a guitar,
but the sound of that slaughter was fuckin' brilliant.
It was the best jazz. It was the best rock and roll.
It was something like no one had ever done before.
And I still love it to this day.
We made the house stand up and roar and scream and shout.
It's the first time they'd ever seen it.
They'd heard about it but never seen it happen.
And then Hendrix came on, played fairly well
and set his guitar alight, slung it in the air and did it all again.
And this time the crowd got up with the same kind of roar, but slightly mystified--
"Now, what's going on here?" you know.
After Monterey Pop, I became very
disturbed about acid.
Coming back from Monterey, on the plane, he had a really bad trip
and vowed he wouldn't take any more psychedelic drugs after that.
I just started to get really sickened by LSD
and acid and by psychedelia and...
But I'd also been inspired by it.
There was no question I'd been inspired.
So I was confused by it.
Within about two months of that, he was into Meher Baba.
I found him through a man called Mike McInnerney.
I was talking to Pete about it.
I think Pete, like every other rock-and-roll star, was, um,
was not having a good time sometimes.
He gave me a book called The God-Man
about this guy called Meher Baba.
He was a Persian born in India who took a vow of silence
and kept it for most of his life.
True believers called him an Avatar, god on Earth.
The very simple thing that Baba asked you to do was to love him.
There's a difficulty there for a start when you're in rock and roll.
You're a performer and you're having to do all the stuff that Pete's having to do,
and yet he chooses to try and to make a spiritual journey at the same time.
The year Pete wrote "I Can't Explain,"
Meher Baba warned against searching for god in a pill.
To the sincere seeker after truth,
experimentation with drugs may well open doors,
but continued use will lead to madness,
death and insanity.
And, you know, from what I've seen,
there are very, very, very few exceptions.
["Magic Bus" plays]
We were booked on a tour, bottom of the bill,
with Herman's Hermits.
You can imagine Herman's Hermits' audience
was sort of 13-year-old middle-class girls.
They were introduced to their first piece of danger.
* I want the magic bus *
They just ran. They just--
They ran to the back of the hall until Herman came on.
* Too much The magic bus *
In Georgia, Moonie discovered firework stands.
And in Michigan, he celebrated his 21st birthday.
I do remember a car did end up in a swimming pool.
I don't know whether it was a Lincoln Continental,
but a car did end up in the swimming pool, and there was a lot of carnage.
However much of that is true, you don't know.
I want it all to be true. You know.
You want to think that he drove his Rolls-Royce into a swimming pool.
It was Keith Moon, for crying out loud.
The truth is several cars were damaged
as well as several rooms in the hotel.
Moonie chipped a tooth running from the law,
and The Who was banned from Holiday Inns for life.
And over here, the guy who plays the sloppy drums.
Follow the Yellow Brick Road. What's your name?
Keith. Keith?
My friends call me Keith. You can call me John.
What's the next song you're gonna do?
"My Generation."
Your generation? Yeah.
I can really identify with that,
because I really identify with these guys, I dig 'em.
And this is a--
You know, you got sloppy stagehands around here.
On the last gig of the trip, they smashed up their gear
for the first time on American television.
Keith bribed that sloppy stagehand to overstuff his drum
with a dangerous amount of explosives.
Moon managed to fulfill the outrageous part of the band,
and we just let him get on with it, and he was outrageous.
Ow! Aaah!
Uh, are you done?
["Happy Jack" plays]
* Happy Jack wasn't old But he was a man *
I think obviously Pete wanted a bigger challenge
than just the three-minute single, you know.
And he wanted to write something much more complex
and detailed and layered.
In four years, The Who had released eight singles in the UK,
all of them top ten hits.
Singles drove the market.
Once the single happened, you immediately went to an album.
As much as we loved the three-minute single,
the value was more than just a three-minute single,
and it could add up to a lot more.
In December 1967,
The Who produced a piece of pop art.
The only time I'd even approached
my art-school training was in Who Sell Out.
Doing commercials, writing songs about products and all of that kind of stuff.
* Coca-Cola *
* Things go better with Coke *
Little bit about it, because it's a very unusual concept.
We want the album to run very smoothly
and perhaps have the atmosphere of a pirate radio station.
So we've done a commercial for Jaguar cars, Heinz baked beans,
and each one, funnily enough, has opened up
a fairly unique opportunity musically
which we wouldn't have got through our normal numbers.
Keith will play one we did yesterday.
Would you do that? It'd be very bold of you.
Pete realized he was onto something.
We knew the album was gonna be the new art form.
Rock music changed the business in 1968.
That year, for the first time,
people bought more albums than singles.
I used to say the '60s was like a renaissance almost.
But the one art form or means of communication
that was more important than all the others was popular music.
* More music, more music More music, more music *
The Who toured the UK, Europe, Australia.
They went coast to coast across North America twice.
* I know you've deceived me *
* Now here's a surprise *
* I know that you have *
* 'Cause there's magic In my eyes *
* I can see for miles And miles *
* And miles and miles *
* And miles *
* Oh, yeah *
We put out "I Can See For Miles,"
and it clearly wasn't gonna change the world,
and it was the best possible thing I could ever write.
So I just thought, well, what do we do now? We're fucked.
* Here's a poke at you You're gonna choke on it too *
* You're gonna lose that smile *
* Because all the while *
* I can see for miles And miles *
I went away, and I thought,
"I have to save this band. I have to do it."
Kit can't do it. Keith can't do it. Roger can't do it.
I have to do it.
Pete comes up with this idea
of this deaf, dumb and blind boy.
The only way he connects with life
is he feels the vibes, right?
The vibes are music, right?
That was it.
That was like-- You know the screenplay written on the back of a cigarette packet?
That's what Pete's idea was.
It's a bit like an opera, but in actual fact, it's a rock opera.
It's modern music as such.
It's the story of Tommy, the deaf, dumb and blind boy,
and his-- his journey through
to extreme high levels of consciousness,
despite the fact that he's deaf, dumb and blind.
* I'm free *
* Freedom tastes *
* Of reality *
It's all part of reincarnation and, uh,
levels of consciousness and stuff like this.
Meher Baba stuff.
Baba might have provided spiritual glue which made sense of
the travails this character was going through,
and the symbolism, if you like.
If you think about the wound of all the sort of working-class war kids,
it's that we didn't have a voice, you know, we couldn't see.
We all had exactly the same experience.
When you went to Granddad and you said,
"What do you think made the fucking Germans do that?"
He'd go, "I don't want to fuckin' talk about it.
You know, fuck off."
* You didn't hear it You didn't see it *
* You won't say nothing To no one never in your life *
* You never heard it How absurd it all seems *
* Without any proof *
We had all these fucking lies we grew up with.
Tommy was so much rooted in my-my childhood story.
Recording began in the fall of '68 and lasted six months.
Pete at the time was writing a song a week.
And literally-- or even a song the same evening
as we'd been in the studio in the afternoon.
He'd come in the next day and say, "Here's the next one and here's the next one."
That was when the ideas from the other guys in the band started to come in.
* I'm your wicked Uncle Ernie *
* Glad you can't see or hear me As I fiddle about *
* Fiddle about, fiddle about *
John Entwistle came up with two really very, very powerful songs
about abuse and bullying that I couldn't write myself
because of my own childhood tenderness on the subject.
* Down with the bedclothes Up with your nightshirt *
* Fiddle about Fiddle about, fiddle about *
His input shouldn't be underestimated.
I mean, the antagonists like Uncle Ernie,
who he initially is, and Cousin Kevin,
are just as important as the hero.
It gave the whole thing a balance.
Good morning, campers! * I'm your Uncle Ernie *
* And I welcome you to Tommy's Holiday Camp *
Keith Moon came up with the idea that the temple,
the bizarre church that I created, should actually be a British holiday camp.
* It is forever Ha-ha!
In that moment, all of the elements of it come together.
And instead of talking about the trouble that we'd created a couple of years ago,
we were talking about the project, about what we could do with it.
* You don't answer my call *
* With even a nod or a wink *
* But you gaze at Your own reflection All right *
* You don't seem to see me *
* But I think You can see yourself *
* How can the mirror Affect you? *
Can you explain in any kind of a way
what satisfaction you get from it?
Yeah. Sexual.
I've always liked balls,
and, uh, to see big, shiny, silver balls
runnin' round a playground like this,
I can get a certain amount of satisfaction
building up a score that's gonna knock everybody else into oblivion,
which, you know-- which I do often.
["Pinball Wizard" plays]
They came up with this idea of introducing pinball
into this bizarre, strange story that was going all over the place.
* Ever since I was a young boy I played the silver ball *
* From Soho Down to Brighton *
* I must've played 'em all *
* But I ain't seen Nothin' like him In any amusement hall *
* That deaf, dumb and blind kid Sure plays a mean pinball *
Pete said, "I thought it was rubbish.
I didn't know whether I should bother finishing it."
And he played it and everyone went quiet until someone said, "That's the number one."
And he went, "Aw," you know. He couldn't see that it was good.
* He's a pinball wizard There has to be a twist *
* A pinball wizard's Got such a supple wrist *
Roger suddenly decided that he would be Tommy.
I was supposed to sing Tommy.
He said, "Can I be Tommy?"
And I remember thinking, yeah.
* See me *
* Feel me *
* Touch me *
* Heal me *
It was only really though when we got onstage with Tommy
as a complete piece of music
that I really found my feet and found The Who voice.
* Touch me *
* Heal me *
Roger suddenly became this different kind of singer.
* Feel me *
He'd never had that quality that he now has,
which is of going up to the audience and engaging them
and opening his body to them, you know, and that kind of nakedness,
instead of being a really tight little kind of, "I'm a vicious mug.
Don't get in my way" kind of thing.
* Listening to you *
* I get the music *
* Gazing at you *
* I get the heat *
* Following you *
* I climb a mountain *
* I get excitement At your feet *
It was a role.
He actually lived each song as it went through.
* Got a feeling '21 Is gonna be a good year *
* Especially if you and me See it in together *
* So you think '21 Is gonna be a good year *
Rock and roll was still being seen on a very bad level.
The sound systems weren't good. You couldn't hear it properly.
So we thought, well, let's use opera houses.
* Have no reason to be Overoptimistic *
The group played Tommy truly as an opera, and it was, like, fantastic.
'Cause you had these ancient, beautiful acoustical places, right,
and this audience hearing their music
played this way for the first time.
After 18 months of touring,
The Who played one final opera house
in New York City-- the Metropolitan.
They really didn't want us to go in there.
They really didn't want to put rock and roll in the Metropolitan Opera House.
The worst snobs turned out to be Americans.
We got in, and when we got in,
Decca Universal re-released Tommy.
It just sold again
like five times what it had sold the first time.
It became one of those huge albums. That was the printing-money era.
* Can you, can you hear me? *
* How can we be saved? *
Tommy was huge
and did take the band along on its coattails.
Tommy, in its own way, became as big as The Who.
* Waking up On Christmas morning *
* Hours before The winter sun's igniting *
* They believe in dreams And all they mean *
* Including heaven's Generosity *
* Peeping round the door to see What parcels are for free *
* In curiosity *
They were developing this high-powered sound for live gigs.
And it's absolutely incredible
that you could get that fantastic full,
rich, rock sound out of just a guitar,
a bass guitar and a drum.
* Listening to you I get the music *
* Gazing at you I get the heat *
* Following you *
* I climb the mountain *
* I get excitement At your feet *
Come on!
I started to feel accepted again in the band during Tommy.
Roger became Tommy, became this figure. Then it equalized.
And then we were unbelievably potent,
because we were balanced.
It was a marriage, but it was a good marriage.
Those were glorious years.
* Behind you I see the millions *
* From you, I see the glory *
* From you, I get opinions *
* From you, I get the story *
["Behind Blue Eyes" plays]
* No one knows what it's like *
* To be the bad man *
* To be the sad man *
* Behind blue eyes *
I think that Pete has always felt the pressure
of being the guy who came up with the ideas.
It was such a special gift that he had.
* No one knows what it's like *
* To be hated *
* To be fated *
* To telling only lies *
I went through terrible periods where
I would want to be getting closer to him,
but I had to push myself away because he was in a creative thing.
And you kind of felt that if you left him alone, it would be better.
But it must have been, for Pete, incredibly lonely.
It must've felt sometimes that we didn't give a fuck about him.
* I have hours *
* Only lonely *
* My love is vengeance *
* That's never free *
It took a terrible toll on him.
After Tommy, they said, "What are you gonna do next?"
In 1971,
Pete conceived the first interactive rock show.
He imagined fans connected to the band,
the music, the art.
The futuristic performance was to be filmed for a movie
and called Lifehouse.
The trouble is with Lifehouse
no one I've ever met, apart from Pete, ever understood it.
At the time, people just thought I was nuts.
Including his mentor.
Behind my back, Kit Lambert was telling everybody
that I was insane
and that what we were really doing was making a movie of Tommy,
and he was directing it.
Pete said, "I've had enough of that.
We're gonna be known just for Tommy. It's bigger than the band."
That was the point at which Kit just exploded the relationship.
* No one knows what it's like *
* To be the bad man *
* To be the sad man *
* Behind blue eyes *
In the spring of '71, Lifehouse was abandoned.
["Baba O'Riley" plays]
The songs for Lifehouse became the basis
of The Who's most successful album, Who's Next.
The opening track was an anthem named in part
for Pete's spiritual guide, Meher Baba.
The nerve of having something open
with that huge, long synthesizer intro,
which everyone in rock at the time said, "You can't have an intro like that,
because the radio won't play it."
He claims-- Pete says that those riffs are that
he put Meher Baba's birth into the computer, and this is what came out.
"Yeah, yeah, I know you, Pete. Yeah, right."
You know. Like hell.
* Out here in the fields *
* I fight for my meals *
One of the first messages that received directly
from Meher Baba was that he recognized me.
That I was one of his, as it were.
And he died two years later, so I never met him.
* Don't cry *
* Don't raise your eye *
* It's only teenage wasteland *
* Sally, take my hand *
* We'll travel south 'Cross land *
* Put out the fire *
* And don't look past My shoulder *
Following the tour for Who's Next,
Pete went to India to visit the tomb of his spiritual guide.
"Beloved Baba sends his love to you.
He is always with you, in you and near you,
and he says, be happy and not to worry."
In a sense, I was engaged in some kind of sabotage.
I was inside this very, very macho group that smashed its guitars
and had a reputation for being quite rebellious,
trying to spread this message of love and peace.
["The Real Me" plays]
* I went back to the doctor *
* To get another shrink *
* I sit and tell him About my weekend *
* But he never betrays What he thinks, whoo *
* Can you see the real me *
* Doctor, Doctor? *
* Can you see The real me, Doctor? *
* Whoa, Doctor *
In 1973, Pete crafted a second rock opera.
Quadrophenia was set against the rumble
of the mods and rockers.
* She said "I know how it feels, Son *
* 'Cause it runs In the family" *
I wanted Kit to be a part of Quadrophenia,
even though it was done and dusted.
Chris Stamp said, "He's in New York and he's got a bit of a problem.
He's become a heroin addict."
After Tommy, the drugs changed.
We'd lost a bit of our-- our vision.
The dynamic of wealth introduced into this family
was what changed it.
Kit and Chris were fighting on a daily basis.
They began to fall apart as partners,
and they began to fall apart as people.
It was quite obvious that Kit was now
into quite heavy substances.
And money was going missing.
It wasn't a matter of they were trying to screw us.
They were just completely out of control.
We became the problem, right?
So if we were to go, the problem would resolve itself.
Now, I've never understood that.
Because although we may have been fucked up,
we could still utter one decent idea once a week...
from our stupor, you know?
So, I don't know. It ended.
The band turned to Bill Curbishley
to take over management.
I looked at the past contracts
and what they were achieving as live performers,
and I felt that could be dramatically changed.
* Bell boy *
-* Gonna get running now * -* Bell boy *
Having set their affairs in order, he urged them to tour Quadrophenia.
-* Carry the bloody Baggage out * -* Bell boy *
* Always running At someone's heel *
But Pete's new opera was much more demanding live
than Tommy had been.
What happened on Quadrophenia was
I had absolute control.
And everybody involved in it was like my puppet.
And I think by the very, very end of it, Roger just got sick of it.
Roger and Pete had a fight in rehearsals.
Pete just got really angry with me.
Takes his guitar and hits me over the shoulder with it.
So the road crew, they jump on me.
I was holding Pete back, and the roadies were holding Roger back.
And I hadn't done anything.
Pete turned around and said, "Yeah, let me go, let me go."
So, I thought, fine. I let him go.
And he just came at me. He was so drunk.
-And he walked up to Roger. -I just managed to catch him with a very lucky punch.
-Whack. -Completely knocked him sparko.
Thump.
His feet left the ground, and he hit his head on the stage.
And he was unconscious, and I thought, "Fuck."
We were all exhausted. And it's a magnificent piece of work.
Absolutely magnificent. It's our towering triumph, Quadrophenia.
So, in a sense, you know,
a little bit of blood spilt on the way is nothing.
As boys, they played dance halls and pubs.
Here they are, The Who!
Less than a decade later, they were headlining stadiums.
As The Who developed, so had the business.
Just think about the feeling to walk onto a stage,
and you've got 60,000 people out there to see you.
Adulation from masses of people is power.
And it distorts.
The adrenaline that you get from stage--
it's incredibly good when it's used.
But if you can't use it, it's incredibly destructive.
Keith and John together were a dangerous double act.
I was very naive.
I didn't realize how much coke they were doing, as well as drinking.
And Keith was doing everything else.
Mandrax to go to sleep.
Elephant tranquilizer. Anything anybody gave him, he would do it.
Who knows what was going on in his brain?
I sometimes feel that he started to believe that he was invincible.
"I can take anything. I'm Keith Moon of The Who."
He was falling down with drug overdoses
on the stage during the shows!
I thought if we kept doing what we were doing,
you know, Keith was gonna die.
After the Quadrophenia tour,
The Who did not take the stage again for 16 months.
We were off the road for long periods of time,
and that in itself was destructive to Keith.
Keith used to go out on benders because he didn't have nothing else to do.
He loved dressing up.
But the trouble is, you'd end up in a nightclub
with him dressed up as a tart or a cavalier.
And then 3:00 in the morning,
you've gone home, and he's still that person.
* Ba-- Ba-Bar-Ran *
We'd just book a hotel in London, and he'd pull
all the Swedish models out of Tramps for four nights
and, excuse my French, shag ourselves to death.
I used to drive him home, and he was like that in the car.
I'd just get him outside, but he goes, "Ah, dear boy.
What a brilliant four days. Let's do that again next week."
And I'd go, "Yeah, okay."
Dougal, he was always there for Keith.
He was a good roadie. He was a good driver.
He was a good-- He was a good cornerman.
Moon's previous cornerman was killed on the job.
In 1970, his childhood friend, Neil Boland,
was accidentally run over by Keith
during an alcohol-fueled scuffle outside a nightclub.
Nobody's really clear on what happened that night,
but Keith's journey
of experience with alcohol and drugs
basically gathered speed.
In 1974, Moon moved to Malibu,
home of the Southern California surfer music he loved so much.
* Here by the sea and sand *
* Nothing ever goes as planned *
* I just couldn't face Going home *
* It was just a drag On my own *
He wanted to get into movies.
People would say, "Oh, he'd make a great movie star."
At the end, it became too much.
* I'm the face If you want it, baby *
* I'm the face if you want it *
I made a phone call to Bill Curbishley and I said, "Look, I'm leaving,
'cause I can't do it anymore."
* If you want it *
But I did say to Bill, "Get him home as soon as possible,
'cause the way he's carrying on, he's not gonna be here much longer."
* Nothing is planned By the sea and the sand *
In 1975, Tommy was immortalized on film,
but not by Kit Lambert.
Director Ken Russell wrote a new script for the rock opera.
The film is appalling, right? It's dreadful.
And everybody in it really should question their fuckin' judg--
particularly Eric Clapton.
A bit pants. A little bit pants.
And I've always been a fan of Ken's, both as a person
and as a visionary, and I love it-- I just love it.
Tommy spent 14 weeks atop the British box office
and garnered three Academy Award nominations.
As his most popular creation took another lap around the world,
Pete went to work on a new album.
I would think, "I can't go through that again."
I just can't go through it again.
I can't come up with some great idea and push it through.
I don't have the arrogance. I don't have the--
the balls to do it again.
* It's clear to all my friends That I habitually lie *
* I just bring them down *
Where we saw our future was in movies.
We'd already done Tommy.
We'd managed to get a foothold in Shepperton Studios.
We thought that we were gonna be about movies.
Manager Bill Curbishley would strike a deal
to produce the film of Quadrophenia.
As they pursued the new popular art form,
a new generation began taking over music.
Punk-- I hated it, and I couldn't see the point
of spitting and all that crap.
It was the revolution of the uglies.
And the uglies loved The Who.
* You think that we look Pretty good together *
You know, they'd come under that category a little bit
as big, big stars that weren't approachable.
* Substitute for another guy *
We were frightened. It was like the French Revolution.
It could've ended up with, you know,
The Beatles, The Stones and The Who being beheaded in public.
* I was born with A plastic spoon in my mouth *
Me and Cookie went down to Speakeasy, which was an after-hours place in London,
and Townshend was in there, already drunk.
Went screaming up to Jones and Cook and kind of going, you know,
"If you want to take over, fuckin' take over. Just fuckin' get on with it.
Good fuckin' luck."
I think we might've been all a bit tipsy, but he was hammered.
And he was going up to people saying, "Who are ya? Who are ya?"
To everyone.
In 1977, Keith returned to England.
Pete had been writing new material.
* Who are you? *
* Who, who, who, who *
* Who are you? *
* Who the fuck are you? *
That December, they filmed a performance
for the band's latest project, a documentary film.
* Who are you? *
* Tell me, who are you? * * Who are you? *
It was their first time back onstage in more than a year.
* Oh, tell me, who are you? *
* Who are you? *
* I woke up in a Soho doorway *
* A policeman knew my name *
* You can go sleep At home tonight *
* If you can get up And walk away *
* I staggered back To the underground *
* And the breeze Blew back my hair *
* I remember Throwing punches around *
* And preaching from my chair *
* Who are you? *
Unfortunately, the band didn't play as well,
but we all-- I think all of us had such a good time together.
But we were all wrecks. You know, so it's kind of like--
* Who are you? *
-* Who, who, who, who * -* I really want to know *
* Who are you? *
* Who, who, who, who *
* Oh, who the fuck are you? *
In the spring of 1978,
they went back into the studio for the first time in three years.
That summer, Moon began taking prescription medicine
to try to curb his drinking.
Keith did that thing of, uh--
I said, "Now, come on, come on. Give it a real go."
And he'd start to try and play.
I'd say, "Come on. Try again."
And in the end, he threw down his sticks and went,
"I'm still--- having a bad day--
but I'm still the best fuckin'--
Keith Moon-type-- drummer in the world!"
* Who are you? *
* Who, who, who, who *
* I really want to know *
Who Are You was released August 18, 1978.
* I really want to know *
* Who are you? *
* Who *
* I really want to know *
* Come on Tell me, who are you *
* You, you, who are you? *
He was found unconscious in a London flat this morning.
The doctor was called, who pronounced Moon dead.
He was found dead by his girlfriend early today. He was 32.
It was a silly mistake that made him take a handful of Heminevrin.
It disables the esophagus, and, you know, he couldn't throw up, and--
He just always took pills in handfuls. It was just a habit that he had.
He was never gonna grow old gracefully.
I don't think he was destined to make old bones.
I suppose he was designed in such a way
to be remembered as he was.
It is the end of an era.
We're gonna try and go on.
The one thing that everyone must understand--
It will never, ever be the same. That died.
But it was very strange, 'cause there's something underneath
that determined not to let the one thing
that we'd all created, including Keith, die--
the music, not to let it die.
* Long live rock I need it every night *
* Long live rock *
* Come on and join the line *
* Long live rock *
* Be it dead or alive *
Less than eight months after Moonie's death,
The Who returned to the stage with keyboard player Rabbit Bundrick
and drummer Kenney Jones.
Kenney Jones was a good mate from The Small Faces,
and we'd always admired him as a drummer, and we liked him as a guy.
Anything can change, especially, you know, with Pete.
So, you just go with it, and you got to know when to go with it.
I went to see The Who for the first time without Keith,
and I'm standing at the side of the stage,
and Pete goes off onto some sort of
freestyle sort of riff, you know, on his guitar,
and he turns to Keith.
Because he's gone as far as he can go.
So he turns to Keith to take it over.
Those moments, like on the stage when I'm taken aback,
because I look, and I expect him to be there.
This is because it is like a marriage.
* Long live rock *
* Come on and join the line *
A real sense of connection
and of life wanting to kind of go on like a wheel.
And thinking, well, everything that goes comes back again.
And the thing is, is that with people it doesn't work like that,
and they don't come back again.
Let's have the biggest hand of the night
for Mr. Kenney Jones, our new drummer.
-Hey. -
Didn't know what I was letting myself in for, to be honest. But there you go.
What happened to me was I started to drift into substances, you know.
Pete's addiction in 1979
was perhaps a reflection of, I think, the guilt
that both-- I'm sure Pete felt.
'Cause I know I did. That I hadn't done enough--
enough to save Kei-- save Keith.
You know, even I started to do things I'd never done before.
You know, I felt very miserable for a long time.
Roger obviously was missing Moonie.
Not just onstage, but in many other ways.
And I think it really got to him a bit.
I didn't bank on the emotional elements, you know.
During Kenney's first tour,
The Who played through the deadliest rock concert in US history.
Cincinnati was an emotionally devastating situation.
The band were, like, 20 minutes into their show.
The co-promoter came to me, and he said,
"We've got a problem up on the plaza level."
What happened is there was only one door to get through
and a staircase to go down, so they all rushed.
And those kids that fell got trampled on.
The band were unaware of what was happening
until they finished the show.
We had to go back to America a couple of months later
and be grilled by the lawyers--
"Do you feel responsible for the people that died?" You know.
It still haunts me to this day.
I can't tell you how I felt about
the parents of those kids.
Their kids had gone off to a concert,
and they don't come home.
We all bear scars.
But you don't live without
having that map of life somewhere on your face.
["Eminence Front" plays]
They released two albums in two years--
Face Dances in '81
and It's Hard in '82,
only to be savaged by some fans and critics.
When you read the newspapers and the reviews, it's like,
"This album is the worst thing that's ever happened in the history of rock and roll.
Townshend has gone mad, and he's masturbating in public."
You know. "They may as well crawl away and die."
* Sun shines *
* People forget *
* Spray flies *
* As the speedboat glides *
* People forget *
The man who encouraged Pete to write works of art
died of a brain hemorrhage in 1981.
Kit Lambert was 45.
I didn't have an answer.
I couldn't work out what to do
that would return the band to its halcyon years.
* As the skier tracks *
* People forget *
* They forget they're hiding *
* It's an eminence front *
What makes The Who special is that it's not even what's written.
It's the bits you don't know are going to happen, and they come out of thin air.
Some nights it makes it, some nights it doesn't.
But the nights that it makes it, they were the--
That was the trouble with Kenney. Those nights became fewer and fewer.
It was Roger who pushed
to get him out of the band.
He didn't think he was right for The Who.
There is no right drummer for The Who.
There will be never be the right drummer for The Who.
It will only be Keith.
But there you go.
* Eminence front, yeah *
* Just an eminence front It's a put-on *
In 1983, Pete officially dissolved the band.
Just months before, Tommy was reissued on a new format-- the compact disc.
* Bullshit, bullshit Yeah, yeah, yeah *
We just reached the end, you know.
That's the way I feel about it. I don't know why.
Bye, bye. I can't wait to get out.
* You got to dress to kill *
* Dress yourself to kill *
You've been traveling on this thing
that was going a million miles an hour, and all of a sudden,
it comes to a complete, dead stop.
And it's incredibly difficult to adjust.
Because we haven't lived normal lives.
It's as though the world stops.
At the time, I was fairly convinced
that I would do better as a solo artist.
I did a few songs. It was a pragmatic decision.
Whether it was the right or wrong decision, I had to do something.
I think if we'd have continued to work,
I think I would've been a casualty.
I blamed rock and roll, and, of course, after three or four years
being out of frontline rock and roll,
I realize I was just as sick, just as mad, and you know, just as overworked.
You know, so... it was me that was the problem.
The Who returned to the stage on only two occasions
over the next 13 years--
a 20-minute set at Live Aid
and an all-star tour for the 20th anniversary of Tommy.
That's the weird thing.
It's like soldiers that used to go out to war and come back
and just couldn't identify with, like, normal life anymore.
When you come home, it's like, "I can't take this, like, normal existence."
John lived for gigging.
He went out with solo bands, and it cost him.
He'd finance it. He didn't make any money. Just to be out there.
John was deeply in debt.
I don't think it's any secret that he was.
Those years when The Who weren't working,
he continued to spend and live the lifestyle.
I went to Pete and said, "You know, this is the only way he's gonna ever get
a chance to dig himself out of the hole is if you would get The Who back together."
* Why should I care? *
I would never hesitate to consider, at least,
that it might be something to do, because I would just think,
"Well, without him, I wouldn't even be here."
["5.15" plays]
Pete agreed to tour Quadrophenia in 1996.
The band brought in Ringo Starr's son,
Zak Starkey, on drums.
As soon as we played those songs, Moonie was alive again.
- * Girls of 15 * - * Sexually knowing *
- * The ushers are sniffing * - * Eau-de-cologne-ing *
At the end John was handed checks of well over two, three million dollars,
and they were gone overnight.
* Prettier women *
["I Can't Explain" plays]
With John in financial trouble, they agreed to
yet another reunion in 1999
with just their basic lineup.
* I've got a feeling inside *
* Can't explain *
-* It's a certain kind * -* Can't explain *
John never seemed to go into a depression.
As long as there was a nice, big wardrobe with 15 pairs of shoes in it
and, uh-- and the obligatory
serially monogamous girlfriend along, he was happy.
Under the continued leadership of manager Bill Curbishley,
the band agreed to a series of live shows.
* I can't explain I think it's love *
* Try to say it to you When I feel blue *
* But I can't explain *
Something happened then.
Pete became inspired again.
It was like the wheel was back on the barrow.
We were just celebrating the old music.
I'd felt like we should just
accept that, you know, we had these great songs,
and personally, I was never gonna be able to surpass them.
* I said, I can't explain *
Thank you very much.
We are honored to be here.
["Won't Get Fooled Again" plays]
Music is an art form.
That art form includes rhythm,
meaning and communication.
I've met people from different walks of life,
and they've all been touched in such a unique
and pure way.
They really feel this deep connection.
So now you've got, for me,
the greatest art form that ever existed.
* There'll be fighting In the streets *
* With our children At our feet *
* And the morals That we worshipped Will be gone *
* And the men Who spurred us on *
When we got that call
about the concert for New York,
America meant so much to The Who, we had to go.
* I'll tip my hat To the new constitution *
* Take a bow For the new revolution *
* Smile and grin At the change all around *
* Pick up my guitar And I'll play *
I was standing just off the stage.
I mean, you know, for me, over all those years of watching The Who,
man, I've never seen anything like that.
* We don't get fooled again *
* No, no *
I was sitting with Bono, just the two of us. Could not believe it.
Just the way they just owned that event, you know, over the TV.
* There's nothing In the streets *
* Looks any different To me *
* And the slogans Are replaced *
* By the by *
Just so much more powerful live
than anyone else that was on the bill that night.
That show in New York,
that could be one of the best illustrations of the power of music.
* Yeah! *
* Not gonna get fooled *
* Don't you get fooled again *
* No, no, no, no *
The sentiments of those songs--
If I could explain it to you, right, it would--
It would be too easy to explain it to you.
It's magic how those songs came from Shepherd's Bush, you know,
and mean as much to people 40 years later
than they did when they were written.
You know, that's phenomenal. And that's something you can't put into words.
It's just magic, man.
They were back in a big, big way.
Back as a four-piece. Back on the road.
It was like a rebirth again.
We had to go back and play there. We had a contract to play Las Vegas.
I flew out to Las Vegas,
and the next morning got a call from my tour manager saying they couldn't wake John up.
Let's put something into a little bit of perspective.
John was one of the best bass players in the world.
John died at the age of nearly 60
with a woman, in bed, after snorting cocaine.
Now, you think, "Hold on, John.
You should've done this in the '70s, not now."
The coroner's report of the situation
in Las Vegas is quite clear.
He shouldn't have been there, doing what he was doing, and it was crazy.
It's kind of what he chose to do.
That's just how he was.
I did have a chuckle. I mean,
if he was gonna go, he couldn't have gone in a better way, really.
On tour, doing all the things he,
and being around the things he loved best, you know.
I think all of us would want to die onstage.
I mean, none of us want to be, uh, just written off.
It gets more difficult as you get older.
How do I say this?
Let's say for argument's sake you're a 58-year-old guy
who's been in a band from the '60s, all right?
It's fuckin' frowned upon in this country.
Like, "You fucking idiot. What are you doing, silly old man?"
We have this tendency to kind of take the piss out of lads like that.
I don't know why it is, you know.
We should keep going until it's over.
We shouldn't stop.
* They make my dream Come true *
Pete rang me back and said, "I want to continue with this tour."
If we'd have split up and gone our own ways,
the next day, I think we would've probably
found it very difficult to get back together on a stage.
The Who performed four days later
at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
Pino Paladino was the band's first choice to fill in on bass.
Listen, we know this--
for some of the fans that have followed us for many years,
this is gonna be very difficult.
And, uh, we understand.
And we're not pretending that nothing's happened, as Roger said earlier on.
And, uh---
And, uh, it is difficult.
I can tell you with my hand on my heart
that when I did look over there and he wasn't there,
I wanted to die-- I just wanted to die.
* The song is over *
* I'm left with only tears *
* I must remember *
* Even if it takes *
* A million years *
If Moon was predictable,
then John was unnecessary.
A great, great loss.
Great loss, John.
I miss him so much, I can't tell you.
What's actually now happened, a further gift
that John's death has given me is
to enjoy an acutely
emphatic relationship with Roger.
You know, we experienced John's death.
He saw me get arrested for, you know,
a child pornography allegation.
* How dare you wear a robe To preside *
* How dare you cover Your head to hide *
* Your face from God *
He was vilified.
He was dragged across the fuckin' national papers
in a scurrilous way, you know.
And after months of investigation,
they established that there was nothing he could be charged with.
In the end, nobody much is gonna listen to me.
But Roger Daltrey, his partner,
he went to bat for him,
and he was under a lot of pressure, Roger.
* How dare you? Do you think I'll quietly go? *
* You are much braver Than you know *
* For I can't die *
Roger is the voice of The Who, and when you're growing up,
you think that he wrote all those things and he's singing them from his heart and--
And then you realize that it's coming from this guy, Pete.
That's when I started to realize there was something deeper going on here.
They're two incredibly strong forces,
and they've relied on each other for years.
Since John died, we're probably musically more together.
I'm sure spiritually we are.
* Will you have some tea *
* At the theater with me? *
* We did it all *
* Didn't we? *
* Jumped every wall *
I think Roger is the best interpreter of my work
that I could've ever hoped for.
* Unraveled codes *
* Ingeniously *
What's very interesting about what Roger and I are left with
is that we have a very pure relationship.
* So seamlessly *
* We made it work *
I recognize his genius, and I love him dearly.
He's like a brother. You know, that's love.
Even though on the outside and when you read things
about what we did in the past and how many fights we used to have,
you'd think these guys used to hate each other.
Did we? Fuck. You know.
Well, I didn't anyway. I loved him.
* A great dream derailed *
He's my friend, I love him,
and I'm standing by him, and he stands by me.
We can say what we like about each other now.
It's not easy for either of us, because we're so
unbelievably un-alike.
But, you know, we're kind of all we've got now.
* One of us, me *
* All of us, sad *
It is really not important whether I am at the time
getting on with Pete or he's getting on with me.
It doesn't matter. All that matters is what we create on the stage--
that two hours of music that night.
And as long as that is still moving people
and sending people out with a buzz,
then we're succeeding.
* Will you have some tea *
* At the theater with me? *
One, two! One, two, three!
["My Generation" plays]
* People try to put us d-down *
* Talking 'bout my generation *
* Just because we g-get around *
* Talking 'bout my generation *
* Things, they do look Awful c-cold *
* Talking 'bout my generation *
* I hope I die Before I get old *
-* Talking 'bout my generation * -* This is my generation *
* This is my generation, baby *
* Why don't you all F-Fade away *
* Talking 'bout my generation *
* Don't try to dig What we all say *
* Talking 'bout my generation *
* I'm not trying to cause A b-big sensation *
* Talking 'bout my generation *
* Just talking 'bout My g-generation *
* Talking 'bout my g-- *
-* My generation * -* Talking 'bout my generation *
* Talking 'bout my generation *
* Why don't you all F-Fade away *
* And don't try to dig What-What we all s-say *
* I'm not trying to cause A bloody big sensation *
-* Talking 'bout my-my-my * -* Talking 'bout my generation *
* My g-generation *
* Yeah, I'm talking 'bout it *
* Hey *
Keith Moon on the drums here.
In the black corner, the Ox.
For Mr. Kenney Jones.
Pino Paladino on bass!
Simon Townshend, guitar, vocal!
Zak Starkey on the drums!
John "Rabbit" Bundrick on keyboards!
But most of all, you!
We will be back!