Gig 004 The Who / Steve Gibbons Band



The Who / Steve Gibbons Band

London Wembley Empire Pool
Friday 24 October 1975


One week later I was back at the same venue with my schoolmate Rob. For a while back then I loved The Who, and these days I struggle to explain why but here goes. In 1975 they seemed to be the last of the great British rock acts to retain any sort of vitality, the Beatles gone, the Stones past their best and the Kinks off the radar. The Who still seemed somehow edgy and dangerous, pushing the envelope with double concept mod odyssey Quadrophenia in 1973. Musically they were the opposite of the Stones’ studied lazy downhome groove; The Who were all clanging guitar, molegrip-on-the-scrotum vocals and filing-cabinet-thrown-down-a-flight-of-stairs drums, and they had that four distinct personalities thing which is appealing to the youth: Townshend the troubled creative powerhouse, taciturn Entwistle, chippy geezer Daltrey and certifiable nutter Moon. No one had a musical dynamic like The Who – more so than in any other group, each member’s contribution was integral to the sound and irreplaceable. For all that, Townshend hadn’t come up with many good tunes since Who’s Next in 1971. Quadrophenia was over-long, bombastic and largely melody-free, and the most recent Who by Numbers was introspective and rather depressing.


Still I was really looking forward to this gig, The Who attracted an older crowd and seeing them live felt like an entry to the world of adult rock. This audience was very different from Roxy Music’s hip crowd: probably 90% male, much denim, not much style. I didn’t see anyone wearing plus-fours. Rob and I had seats with a ‘restricted view’, meaning that we were looking down from the side of the stage, behind the PA speakers, but in fact they were good seats in that we had almost a roadie’s-eye close-up view of the group, and the sound was really not too bad. The Steve Gibbons band went about their thankless task, seemingly destined forever to be a support act until they had a couple of hits in the late 70s. Appropriately warmed-up, we could see The Who preparing to hit the stage before most of the audience, and when they did we heard the roar of an enthusiastic crowd to full effect – The Who inspired true devotion. The four of them bowled to the front of the stage, Moon wearing a replica policeman’s helmet which he rugby-kicked into the melee. When they launched into Substitute the sound was thunderous, miles away from the clipped economy of the 10-year-old single. The Who worked much better than Roxy in this horrible hangar; while Townshend as a writer was capable of great subtlety – songs such as Tattoo and Sunrise are exquisite – in this live set there wasn’t too much subtlety to get lost. They were a fantastic live act at the top of their game, real showmen, Moon bouncing drumsticks high into the air, the famous Townshend windmill and scissor kick, Daltrey throwing the mic over the front rows and expertly whipping it back like a lion-tamer. They played most of their hits, a few from the new album, a sequence from Tommy (melodically much stronger than the more recent Quadrophenia, from which they played nothing), and finished with an immense Won’t Get Fooled Again. I find I rarely listen to The Who these days but this was truly a great gig, one of my best ever. I feel fortunate to have seen them when I did.

x

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