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Days of Riffs and Groupies
'Almost Famous' bathes the '70s rock scene in a golden glow
By SEAN MITCHELL (San Diego)

At the Sports Arena here one night in 1971, Cameron Crowe, then 14, was
attending a concert by the Who when he found himself pushed forward by the
crowd until he was directly in front of the stage.

"I was crushed and couldn't breathe," he recalled, "but I was there for
three songs, and I remember looking up and Pete Townshend seemed to me to be
20 feet tall. He was huge and he had a crown on, and I was gone. I then knew
I had to be a rock journalist."

What happened next is the subject of Crowe's new autobiographical movie,
"Almost Famous." Set in 1973, it's the story of a precocious teenage rock
writer whose chance to get a permanent backstage pass while working for
Rolling Stone magazine hurls him into adulthood.

The film stars newcomer Patrick Fugit as Crowe's teenage stand-in, William
Miller; Billy Crudup as star guitarist Russell Hammond (a role originally
intended for Brad Pitt), who is also a confidant to William, and Frances
McDormand as William's rock 'n' roll-phobic, college professor mom.

For Crowe, now 43, the real star of his movie is the music. It depicts the
brief period after Woodstock and before disco when it seemed that "rock and
roll could save the world," as Townshend once declared.

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