Nick Lees re-reviews Who's 1968 Edmonton show

[Brian Cady]

>From The Edmonton Journal:
http://tinyurl.com/jfxdx

EDMONTON - The Who's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was still 22 years in the future when Edmonton Journal city editor Eddie Keen called me over to ask if I'd heard of the band.

It was 1968, and I wasn't long off the cargo boat that had brought me across the Atlantic.

Behind me was the miniskirted London of the swinging '60s. I'd interviewed the Beatles and the Rolling Stones there in my Carnaby Street suit.

"It's a pyrotechnic band that has broken away from the 'greaser' music favoured by rockers," I told Keen.

In 1965, the band had vaulted to fame with their My Generation album, which contained the famous line: "Hope I die before I get old."

In 1967, they appeared on the Smothers Brothers Show, drawing world attention with an especially fiery demonstration of their routine of wrecking their instruments.

The destruction seemed spontaneous, but it was carefully planned. A giant smoke machine was fired up behind the amp rack and Pete

Townshend jammed his guitar into his speaker, apparently causing it to short-circuit.

While he smashed his guitar to smithereens in the resulting ball of fire and smoke, drummer Keith Moon used triple the amount of explosives he normally did to make a volcanic-like eruption.

Townshend is said to have sustained severe ear damage in the explosion. But it signalled the band had given the performance everything they had.

Keen hauled me off my beat covering what was then the Supreme Court of Alberta to join some 6,000 fans headed for the March 2 concert at the Edmonton Gardens.

Inside, an army of teenyboppers stood on their seats, screaming.There was such pandemonium that the lights were switched on again and it was announced the show wouldn't go on unless fans sat down.
What hadn't helped was the group was 15 minutes late, delayed mainly because the electronics triggering the smoke bombs weren't working.

Onstage at last, the lads enthralled us with their greatest numbers to date, such as Substitute, which included the line, "I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth."

To the best of my memory, they also played their hit, I'm a Boy, about a boy made up like a little girl, and Pictures of Lily, a tribute to masturbation.

Critics were later to say these songs showed Townshend's growing use of clever and novel stories of sexual and mental confusion, which eventually led to his masterpiece, Tommy.

By performance end, I wrote, 12 girls had fainted amid the heat and hysteria and were carried to first-aid posts. I also reported the box-office take was $14,000, not bad in the days when that could buy a very modest house.

Lead singer Roger Daltrey, then 23, wore shocking pink velvet pants and a scarlet velvet jacket, in the spirit of those psychedelic times.

"He threw his microphone into the crowd and then pulled it back like a yo-yo," I wrote in my review. "Drummer Keith Moon started throwing his drumsticks away over his shoulder -- and then, finally, his drum, Fortunately, of course, there was someone there to catch it."

Townshend, then 22, wore a white-sequined jacket and frilly collar, and jitterbugged around the stage playing his distinctive power chords, while bass guitarist John Entwistle, 23, kept a steady rhythm on bass.

To the delight of shrieking fans, Townshend smashed his guitar, a feat that was to become a rock cliche.

At the end of the concert, fans tried to scale the stage by climbing over metal barriers. But security guards and police hurled them back.

Promoter Benny Benjamin spirited me behind the stage where Daltrey told me: "We'd have an enormous bill if we really broke all those instruments every act. Most of them can be patched up."
The destruction idea began one night, he added, when Townshend broke his guitar on a low ceiling.
"The fans liked it so much we have always kept it in," he said.

The night ended with The Who being locked into their bus for safety.

Two years after that Edmonton performance, The Who were catapulted to superstar status by their performance at Woodstock and in the movie of the same name.

Sadly for fans, only Daltrey and Townshend remain. Moon died in London of an overdose in 1978 at age 31. Entwistle, 57, was found dead in his Las Vegas hotel room in 2002. The coroner said a modest amount of cocaine found in his system played a part in a major heart attack.

Band members have changed, but The Who's music lives and feats live on.

I wouldn't dream of setting out on the highway today without a CD with their hits, I Can See For Miles, Magic Bus and Pinball Wizard.

nlees at thejournal.canwest.com
- - -
- Friday: Interview with Pete Townshend
- Saturday: Concert review by Sandra Sperounes and more from Nick Lees


-Brian in Atlanta
The Who This Month!
http://www.thewhothismonth.com
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