The Who

Which countries have you seen The Who play in? Fly your flags. 🇬🇧

Which one are you choosing for your Sunday listening? 👇

50 YEARS OF TOMMY 17 August 1969. So here we are, posting this at 5.00am ET on 17 August 2019, fifty years to the minute (give or take one or two) since The Who walked on stage at Woodstock Music & Art Fair at Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, NY and began their set, which was to last for approximately 70 minutes. They were exhausted, tired from hanging around all of the previous day waiting to go on stage (they were supposed to go on at around 10.00pm), tired that they were having trouble getting paid and wired because their drinks had been spiked with LSD. Pete had come with his wife Karen and their five-month-old daughter Emma. They were staying at the Howard Johnson motel in Liberty, a dozen or so miles from the venue as were John and Alison Entwistle. Roger came with his then girlfriend/future wife Heather Taylor, driven to the festival site by Heather’s mother in her VW bus. How Keith got there is a mystery! Most probably with the band’s road manager John ‘Wiggy’ Wolff. Saturday 16 August had kicked off at 12.15pm with a set by Quill, followed at 1.00pm by Country Joe McDonald, 2.00pm: Santana, 3.30pm: John Sebastian, 4.45pm: The Keef Hartley Band, 6.00pm: The Incredible String Band, 7.30pm: Canned Heat, 9.00pm: Mountain, 10.30pm: The Grateful Dead, 12.30am: Creedence Clearwater Revival, 2.00am: Janis Joplin, 3.30am: Sly & The Family Stone and finally at 5.00am . . . The Who. They opened their set with John’s ‘Heaven and Hell’ followed by ‘I Can’t Explain’ and then launched into a 17-song cut-down version of Tommy ending up with ‘Summertime Blues’, ‘Shakin’ All Over’ and a long closing jam of ‘My Generation’ leading into ‘Naked Eye’. During Tommy, as they had finished ‘Pinball Wizard’ and were about to begin ‘Do You Think It’s Alright?’ political activist Abbie Hoffman appeared on stage, grabbed Pete’s mic and went off on a rant about the imprisonment of John Sinclair, the MC5’s manager and leader of the White Panther movement. He should have known better. Pete hit him with the neck of his guitar and booted him off the stage. But the climax of The Who’s performance was around 6.05am. Roger: “The thing that saved us was the sun coming up. When I sang ‘See Me, Feel Me' the sun peeked over the back of the crowd. It was the best light show we could ever have had!” Nevertheless neither he nor the rest of the band were impressed with their performance at Woodstock. In a recent interview with the NY Times he commented “It was a particularly hard one for me, because of the state of the equipment. It was all breaking down. I’m standing in the middle of the stage with enormous Marshall 100 watt amps blasting my ears behind me. Moon on the drums in the middle. I could barely hear what I was singing.” Pete wasn’t that impressed either. “All those hippies wandering about thinking the world was going to be different from that day. As a cynical English arsehole I walked through it all and felt like spitting on the lot of them and shaking them and trying to make them realise that nothing had changed and nothing was going to change. Not only that, what they thought was an alternative society was basically a field full of six-foot-deep mud and laced with LSD. If that was the world they wanted to live in, then f**k the lot of them.” Even though The Who didn't think their set was up to much at Woodstock, take a look at this video of them performing ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ / ‘See Me, Feel Me’ and just see how good they really were in those early hours of 17 August all those years ago. The Set List: Heaven And Hell I Can’t Explain It’s A Boy 1921 Amazing Journey Sparks Eyesight To The Blind Christmas The Acid Queen Pinball Wizard Do You Think It’s Alright? Fiddle About There’s A Doctor I’ve Found Go To The Mirror I’m Free Tommy’s Holiday Camp We’re Not Gonna Take It See Me, Feel Me Summertime Blues Shakin’ All Over My Generation/Naked Eye https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaUDOzorCcI

From Soho down to Brighton...

Win The Who’s ‘My Generation’ Deluxe 3LP Vinyl Edition! - https://www.udiscovermusic.com/competitions/the-who-giveaway/

WHO's kept their ticket stubs from gigs over the years? Show us yours. Photo: Alex Barron-Hough

5.00am ET, this Saturday August 17th marks the 50th anniversary of The Who taking the stage at Woodstock where they played a stunning set culminating in the sun rising an hour later just as Roger sang "See me, feel me, touch me, heal me . . . " We're currently looking for any New York Who fans who were at Woodstock and saw The Who play that day. If you were there, let us know.

Last week, we asked when you first discovered The Who. It was great to see so many personal stories. Keep them coming! ⬇ ️

The Garden

Roger Daltrey recalls the mud, the music and the madness. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/07/arts/music/roger-daltrey-who-woodstock.html

Last chance to WIN a trip to Boston to meet Roger Daltrey & Pete Townshend at The Who’s Fenway Park show! Donations support Teen Cancer America—enter now: http://bit.ly/You-Win-VIP-The-Who

Pete Townshend, 2011. Have you heard 2019’s Orchestral iteration of Tommy yet?

It's been a month since the fantastic Wembley Stadium show. We've replicated the setlist on Spotify so you can relive the night. Listen here: smarturl.it/TheWhoWembley

50 YEARS OF TOMMY 4 August 1969. Another gig for The Who at the Pavilion in Bath, a venue which they played at many times during the 1960s – this being their eighth appearance here. But someone made a bit of a mistake on this flyer. Can you spot it?

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Do you know what it was called? #TheWhoTrivia

The Who's keyboard supremo and backing vocalist Loren Gold is our guest editor on Backstage Blog. Find out what it's like behind the scenes. https://www.thewho.com/backstage-blog/loren-gold-our-guest-editor-of-backstage-blog/

50 YEARS OF TOMMY 2 August 1969. A first-time appearance for The Who this Saturday night in '69 at the Winter Garden In Eastbourne, Sussex. The venue is still going – although it's currently closed for renovations. No, it's nothing to do with any damage caused by The 'Oo fifty years ago!

Have you got your tickets for the second stretch of the Moving On! Tour yet? thewho.com/tour

Name one venue that you would love to see The Who play.

50 YEARS OF TOMMY 28 July 1969. The Who had a strong following up in the North East, playing gigs at the Bay Hotel in Whitburn and several Tyneside clubs and ballrooms. These gigs had all been set up by Geoff Docherty who on this day in 1969 opened the Fillmore North at the Locarno Ballroom in Sunderland. Who else then did he get to open his new club but The Who.

Performing Tommy in 1969 at Fillmore east. Photo: Amalie R. Rothschild

The Who are getting themselves back to the garden. Fifty years after the iconic band took to the stage at Woodstock in August '69, they really will be back at the Garden. The Who have added a return Madison Square Garden show in New York City on September 1st to kick off the fall leg of their much heralded 2019 North American MOVING ON! TOUR. Each performance is supported by a 48-piece local symphony orchestra. Get your tickets for Madison Square Garden here https://tinyurl.com/y67qh3ka https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhNyHUTGOQw

50 YEARS OF TOMMY On this day, in 1969, The Who played Redcar Jazz Club, North Yorkshire. Here's Roger Daltrey photographed on the night by Graham Lowe.

Happy 76th birthday Mick Jagger with love from Pete and Roger. Photo by Davies & Starr.