Re: Cincinnati

[briancady@juno.com (Brian S Cady)]

Dave Elliott writes:
>I was quite miffed at Pete's interview on the subject in 80, and 
>profoundly
>disappointed that the tragedy never made it into any of his music.  He
>certainly finds the time to write about his personal struggles, and
>apparently the Cincinnati tragedy is not among them.
>
>My lesson from all of this was that Pete Townshend, The Who and their 
>music
>are not worth dying for.  I also learned that Pete can't really care 
>about
>us on a personal level, and even if he could he probably wouldn't.

Instead of trying to refute this, I thought I'd just send in Pete's own
words and let everyone decide for themselves:

	"I think what's not apparent to the outside world, in The
	 Who, is our bloody-minded brutality.  Our determination.
	 Our stamina, and our strength.  It's not apparent, because
	 we seem to brood so incessantly on our weaknesses, we seem
	 to have so many phobias; like everybody who really cares 
	 about rock, we spend time worrying how many more years.
	 But the amazing thing, for us, is the fact that when we
	 were told, told about what happened at that gig, that
	 eleven kids had died, for a second, our guard dropped.
	 Just for a second.  Then it was back up again.
	
	"It was, f*** it!  We're not gonna let a little thing like
	 this stop us.  That was the way we had to think.  We had
	 to reduce it.  We had to reduce it, because if we'd actually
	 admitted to ourselves the true significance of the event,
	 the true tragedy of the event, not just in terms of rock,
	 but the fact that it happened at one of our concerts, the
	 tragedy to us, in particular, if we'd admitted to that,
	 we could not have gone on and worked.  And we had a tour
	 to do.  We're a rock and roll band.  You know, we don't
	 f*** around, worrying about eleven people dying.  We care
	 about it, but there is a particular attitude I call the
	 "tour armour."  When you go on the road you throw up an
	 armour around yourself, you almost go into a trance."

	 [large snip]

	"I think only time will tell.  If I could dare say it, I'd
	 say that Cincinnati was a very, very positive event for
	 The Who.  I think it changed the way we feel about people.
	 It's changed the way we feel about our audience.

	Q: In terms of affection?

	"In terms of affection, and also remembering constantly that
	 they are human beings and not just people in rows.

	[small snip]

	"I mean, I watched Roger Daltrey cry his eyes out after that
	 show.  I didn't but he did.  But now, whenever a f***ing
	 journalist asks you about Cincinnati, they expect you to
	 come up with a f***ing theatrical tear in your eye!  You
	 know: 'Have you got anything to say about Cincinnati?'  
	 'Oh, we were deeply moved, terrible tragedy, the horror,
	 the loss of life, arrrghh'  What do you do?  We did all
	 the things we thought were right to do at the time: sent
	 flowers to the f***ing funerals.  All wasted.  I think
	 when people are dead they're dead.

	 (Rolling Stone June 26th, 1980 p. 38)

Well, there's the worst of it.  All I can say is how stupid of Pete to
try to be honest with people.  Wouldn't we just have so much more respect
for him if he had given us all the big theatrical tear instead of letting
us into his head and heart to see how a real human being in a crisis
reacts!  And since Pete also complained about how the words above meant
something else if you heard his inflection, let me just say that I'm
being bitterly sarcastic.

		-Brian (a f***ing journalist) in Atlanta