'73 Quad tour

The Quad shows in '73 and '74 followed the basic pattern of the Who's Tommy
tour shows,   ie: play some warm-up songs,  then play the opera proper, then
close the show out with a few more songs.      As Bruce pointed out the
warm-up songs were usually I Can't Explain, Summertime Blues, My Wife,  and
 My Generation.     The original concept of Quadrophenia performed live was
to play My Generation immediately before and after the Quad set.    The U.K.
tour saw this type of performance throughout,  and some of the U.S. shows saw
it as well (Los Angeles for example).     

 Compared to the Tommy tour a similar percentage of Quadrophenia was
performed live in the show.    With the possible exception of the 1st show of
the U.K. tour (where supposedly all of it was played),   about 75% of Quad.
was played in order,  with Pete and Roger leading the audience through the
story,  at each of the shows on the tour.     Helpless Dancer (on which
Roger, Pete and John alternated vocal lines) was dropped from the show in
Boston,   3 shows from the end  of the U.S. tour.    The Rock (as Bruce
pointed out) was played at all of the U.K. shows on the first leg. 







































                                                                             
In the U.S.,  Chicago was reportedly the best show of the tour,   with Roger
describing it as 'having the French revolution going on in the audience.'
    In the U.K. the best shows had to be the Christmas performances at the
Edmonton Sundown in London,    particularly the last two shows,   12/22 and
12/23/73.       The French shows in '74 found the band much more sure-footed
with the material,   playing more and talking less,  and were also wonderful
shows.

 Another feature of this tour which was fairly unique for Keith-Moon-era
shows,  was the high percentage of shows which got encores.      Before and
after the Quad. tour Who encores were fairly rare items,  but during this
tour they pretty regularly did one,  usually consisting of Magic Bus and
Naked Eye with a little Let's See Action thrown in.     

The tour of course was not without problems though.     They reportedly only
rehearsed for 3 days prior to going out on the road,  and didn't allow enough
time for the new album to settle in with the audience that would be coming to
the shows.    What this meant was that,  like 1971 where they were endlessly
getting barraged with 'Play Tommy' requests,  in '73 they were always getting
 'play Baba O'Riley'   'play Behind Blue Eyes'  and of course 'play Tommy'.
  They seemed to be about one album in front of the bulk of their audience.
     On top of that,  this was technically a difficult show to mount,
especially in the U.S. where they were playing arenas (the U.K. shows were
exclusively in theaters.). They were using backing tapes for the Real Me
 (the beginning and end),  Helpless Dancer,  Bellboy,  Dr. Jimmy, and Love
Reign O'er Me,  as well as ocean sounds throughout.    They were also touring
with a quadrophonic pa system as well,  in which the back of the hall
speakers primarily produced the ocean sound effects.    

The tape problems on the tour were actually not as common as most people
think.    In fact,  of the recordings that exist of the shows,   the worst
tape sync problem is (ironically) the beginning of the Real Me from the
Capitol Center show used for the King Biscuit Flower Hour b'cast.   The show
with the worst tape problems was Newcastle,  which was rescheduled after Pete
reportedly dragged Bobby Pridden over the monitor mixing desk at the side of
the stage due to the tapes fucking up.

      There were other problems as well,  which lead Rolling Stone to title
their article about the tour 'The Who's Spooky Tour'.     Roger knocked Pete
out during the rehearsals before the start of the U.K. leg of the tour,  when
Pete came after Roger with a guitar.   Pete ended up in the hospital.     In
San Francisco,   Keith took a animal tranquilizer,  which caused him to pass
out twice towards the end of the show,  and prompted the band to get a
drummer out of the audience to play on the encore.     In Montreal,  fans of
the band who crashed a after-show party  at the hotel the Who were staying
at,  did considerable damage to that floor of the hotel,   and (although
Keith was reportedly the only band member present at the party) the hotel
manager called the police and the entire band found themselves thrown in jail
(Cell Number 7 I think.....).     They didn't get bailed out until late the
next afternoon,   and had to have a chartered plane take them to that
evening's show in Boston. 

After the French tour, in Feb. of '74,   work really got underway on the
Tommy film,   which put a grinding  halt to any momentum Quadrophenia was
gaining as a performance piece.    The 6 shows the Who did in the spring of
'74 saw a greatest-hits-type set in which the Quadrophenia material was
reduced and taken out of context.    Even at these shows,  they still played
Drowned, Dr. Jimmy,  Bellboy,  I'm One,  and the Punk and the Godfather  but
once again they found Tommy's long shadow eclipsing their more current work.