Re: Did you see The Who in '68?

TheWho-Digest-Owner@igtc.com wrote:
> 
> > Subject: Re: Did you see The Who in '68? (fwd)
> 
> In my quest to dig up information on the '68 Aussie tour I received the
> following email which I thought might be of interest:
> 
> - ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: 20 AUG 1996 13:39:17 GMT
> From: John Moon <johnmoon@connexus.apana.org.au>
> Newgroups: aus.music
> Subject: Re: Did you see The Who in '68?
> 
> Denis Bowler <dbowler@pcug.org.au> wrote:
> 
> : I am looking for information relating to the Who/Small Faces/Paul Jones
> : tour of Australia/New Zealand in January/February of 1968.
> 
> I saw one of the concerts here in Melbourne at Festival Hall!
> I was 14 years old and it was the first time that I ever saw a live
> band.......fuck.....what an introduction.  :-)
> 
> I remember seeing a row of MARSHALL stacks (I think there were 4
> of these (at the time) giants across the stage...could have been 6)
> on stage and for those days it looked quite awesome...more on them later.
> 
> THE QUESTIONS opened the show (later to become Doug Parkinson In Focus)
> and from what i remember they were ok. PAUL JONES then came on and did
> his thing (the questions were his backing band). He was very good.
> 
> On came THE SMALL FACES they were great, did all their hits ITCHYCOO PARK
> TIN SOLDIER, LAZY SUNDAY AFTERNOON etc., etc.  I remember that STEVE
> MARRIOT was playing a black GIBSON LES PAUL...more on that in a minute.
> 
> Finally on came THE WHO.....they were absolutely AWESOME!!!!
> The birdman was doing his windmills, Daltrey was swinging his mic,
> Moon was just goin' for it on the kit and John Entwistle was just
> a rock of gibralter holdin it all together.
> 
> Townshend was playing a blue Fender Stratocaster with a white scratchplate
> and during SHAKIN' ALL OVER the guitar neck snapped off midway thru the
> song and he just threw it across the floor backstage and was given
> STEVE MARRIOT'S black Les Paul to play. When the song finished, Townshend
> explained to the audience that his roadies loosen the bolts at the back
> of the neck/guitar body join so he wont hurt his hands when he smashes it
> at the end of the show. The crowd were calling out to him to smash
> the Les Paul but he said he couldnt cos' it was Steve Marriot's guitar.
> The road crew then came back with his strat bolted back together again.
> 
> Finally at the end of the show all hell broke loose on stage, the amp's
> had smoke rising out of the top of the boxes and thinking of it now,
> it was obviously some special effect that was planned to go off cos the
> smoke was uniform from all amps and they all "smoked" at precisely the
> same time....but it was very effective, no one had ever seen anything
> like this before.
> 
> Just to give you an idea of what sort of an impression it left on me,
> I only lasted one more year at school, i got a job, learnt how to play
> guitar, saved my money and bought some good equipment and became a
> full time rock musician (check my homepage for a who's who of whom i've
> worked with over the years). When I saw what happened that night i
> knew what I wanted to become.
> 
> Anyway, I hope this helps you out....regards.
> 
> - --
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> 
>                         johnmoon@connexus.apana.org.au
> 
>              WWW Home Page http://connexus.apana.org.au/~johnmoon
> 

Amazingly, I was at the exact same concert as John ("awesome" just doesn't seem enough 
to describe the effect this show had on us teenagers).

To follow on from what he wrote, I'd like to add that when the finale of the show 
approached Pete explained that he couldn't smash Marriot's guitar so out came his 
"repaired" Strat. This was then smashed and hurled into the audience.

I can still see my mate, Les Wellstead, emerging from the pack with the neck of the 
ill-fated guitar in his possession. However the Roadies or Security (I think the latter) 
waited till we were filing out and in that post concert dreamy state, we were extricated 
from the crowd and the souvenir inexplicably confiscated.

That episode plus the obviously staged ending did diminish their hero status to me. But 
not enough to prevent them still enjoying by far the largest presence in my record 
collection to this day.

John Moon thank you for retelling your memories.

Ian Clothier.