After the Fall Diary

[L. Bird]

>From http://www.petetownshend.com

25 July 2006
After the Fall


  I have already had quite a few emails from fans expressing various views 
about the cancellation of Who Live webcasting on my www.thewholive.tv 
website. I’m delighted for the feedback and will share your views with Roger 
when I get a chance.

I want to say a few things:

1. I don’t want Roger to appear to be a completely against webcasting. He 
has mixed feelings about it, and as a result would be happiest for a major 
sponsor to take it over. Intel came close to offering us a deal that 
involved helping to launch their ViiV system, but I was uncertain about it. 
It seemed to me that I personally would have the bulk of the work helping 
Intel to set up and run a new website dedicated to the Who. Roger offered to 
contribute to a website once it was up and running, but he reserved the 
right not to do so some times. What he will definitely not do is pay for it. 
I have been willing thus far to pay for a Who website, and webcasting, for a 
variety of reasons. Not least, I am already the Who’s principal music 
publisher, and as a producer I believe In The Attic is a powerful tool to 
get new personalities and music out in a world where traditional radio is 
still tied too tightly to advertising and demographics.

2. The Who are well established as a classic rock touring war-horse. 
Webcasting the Who, whether Live or Pay For View, and donating profits (nor 
proceeds) to various causes, was entirely my idea. I was unable to share my 
plan properly with Roger prior to the tour because we were having such 
trouble meeting our recording deadlines. My feeling, still, is that 
webcasting allows us new ways to get our new music across that our 
traditional Live show does not. I have yet to convince Roger of this. Sadly, 
I announced my grand plans, and put them in action, before Roger really had 
a chance to digest what I was doing.

3. Six months prior to the start of the Who tour I established a plan for 
the Live webcasting of In The Attic (during the Who tour but not allied to 
it). I subsequently persuaded Rachel Fuller (the presenter and my 
co-producer) to do her show from Who shows for my convenience, even though 
that caused her a lot of problems – noise from the Who stage, extreme heat 
at outdoor shows, the expense of taking the video and sound rig to every Who 
gig, the cost of Satellite equipment etc. The upside for Rachel turned out 
to be that at Festivals she was able to invite other bands on to chat and 
play – and we both enjoyed that. I also pleaded with her to include a Live 
Who song from every Who show in case she sold her show on to television – 
that way the Who would appear before a wider audience.

4. It will be clear that I simply decided to combine the two main events: In 
The Attic webcasting was combined with Live Who webcasting (the latter to 
raise money for charities Roger and I both feel passionate about).

5. The statistics for both the Who viewing figures and for In The Attic are 
quite phenomenal. They are more surprising for In The Attic; there is a 
tendency among some people to assume that it is the Who brand name that 
attracts viewers. The stats show a more balanced view. It appears that about 
one quarter of those who request video to view on demand watch In The Attic, 
and they actually stay much longer than the average viewing time on the web. 
For Live streaming in real time In The Attic outstrips the Who at the 
moment.

6. I am having a ball doing the In The Attic shows prior to Who shows, and 
for some reason it is making me feel lighter-hearted about my stage role in 
the Who. There are number of reasons for this, some are obvious, some less 
so: I haven’t really evaluated the chemistry yet. It could simply be that I 
am a performer and I like to have as big an audience as possible. But I do 
love a technological challenge too. I also like the sound of my own voice.

7. Fans wonder whether Roger’s non-appearance on In The Attic has any 
significance. Firstly, there has always been an open invitation for him to 
appear as other artists like Eels or Flaming Lips have appeared – to come on 
informally and chat and maybe play a song. I believe he is quite simply a 
little shy, but also feels In The Attic is the exclusive territory or Rachel 
Fuller and her team (that includes me) and feels he does enough performing 
on stage with me as ‘The Who’. As yet, he simply hasn’t appeared. No one 
wants to bully him to commit to come on the show when he is working so hard 
in the Who.

So there seems to be no real problem. Why am I backing down on Who 
webcasting? It is simply that while on tour it is too much to carry on my 
own. I had hoped that Roger would fall more actively behind me, and we could 
secure a solid sponsorship deal that would make everything flow smoothly, 
and repay some of my initial investment. Roger has been recorded in the 
media several times saying that I benefit from publishing income while the 
Who are not touring, and that allows me greater personal, creative and 
financial freedom. This is true. But with no promise of any investment from 
inside or outside the Who I need to stand back now and review my commitment.

Some emails starting to come in are focussing on the price of watching $10 
webcasts versus the cost of a $30 DVD. This is not relevant – we are selling 
Live webcasts. If you are happy with a recording, and are willing to wait 
for it, you can get what you want from www.themusic.com. To begin with I 
settled on 99 cents per song-segment, the iTunes model. Our ‘walk-up’ for 
this was miserable. The Time Zone was tricky for U.S. fans. So we turned to 
selling the entire show for $10. This was a little better, but our 
co-production with Hard Rock at London’s Hyde Park created a massive last 
minute walk-up that – according to our technical people – caused the Pay To 
View servers to crash. As a result we were forced to put the show up free, 
after quite a few people had paid for it. We could have asked for money for 
Who clips on demand (to avoid Time Zone problems), but in the past I have 
always put these up on the Who microsite free. Live is Live. Anything could 
happen when you are Live. An edited, streamed download is just not as 
exciting, and it is not NEW!!!

Another problem is that the Who seem to be playing roughly the same song set 
every night. We are back in harness, walking an old warhorse of classic rock 
songs around Europe’s Festivals – playing to new and often younger crowds 
who are getting to know us. They want to hear the old music. I swing my arm, 
Roger swings his mike, kids hold up signs telling me to smash my guitar. 
It’s fun all over again. Our web fans may well have heard it all before, 
they are more interested in something new and risky: it is a dilemma. A rock 
Festival with 80,000 kids who have never seen The Who is not the place to 
get arty.

I feel I have no alternative but to LET GO of my ambitions to see Live 
webcasting of all or part of every Who show. In The Attic allows me to play 
new music and old rarities as and when I want to, and to meet new people 
while on the road with the Who. This does and will continue to keep me 
interested and revitalised and – as long as she is willing - has the added 
bonus of bringing my partner Rachel along on the tour with me.

I will continue to discuss with Roger what we might be able to do on the Who 
stage to take advantage of the immense webcast experience I have. However, I 
do not want to bully anyone. Roger is my partner in the Who. He is not my 
partner in anything else. We love each other but we are not regular social 
buddies like Bono and Edge, we do not discuss or share ideas, and we have no 
unified joint vision or strategy for the Who or for creative projects in 
general. For those of you who think the Who should just get their head down, 
make a record, and play Live, well….

HERE WE ARE!!!!!

On a positive note – I am really enjoying the Who shows we are doing. We are 
playing some new songs, and will play more new stuff on the U.S. tour. I am 
enjoying meeting people and seeing new faces in the crowd. When we get to 
the USA we will at least be in the same Time Zone as the majority of our 
fans in a country the Who have played in most over the years. The Who is an 
old rock warhorse, but I have a new intravenous drip in In The Attic, and it 
seems to be keeping me sprightly. I feel recharged and lightened by my 
appearances on In The Attic. So I suppose a lot of good things could happen 
if I just LET GO AND LET THEM HAPPEN.

As I have said may times here in these dairy pages, watch this space.