For anyone interested BBC 4 have got the making of Tommy, Tommy and the making of Quadrophenia on now so get your parkas out grab a bag of blues and kick back and enjoy.
I ended up watching Tommy. I hadn't seen it in years and always thought it was pretty dire although I love The Who. For some reason I found it compulsive viewing despite some really dire versions of the songs. Keith Moon and Olly are hysterical in it. It's completely over the top, but I thought Daltrey is really watchable in it. He was one of the few musicians that actually can act. Watched a bit of the making of Quadrophenia, Townshend seemed quite pissed of with Moon at the bit I watched. He said Keith kept puttin on comedy performances when they tried to play it live. He was meant to play Ace Face in The Bellboy song, but kept playing it for laughs. Pete said he kept telling him it was a serious role as this is the only representation of this integral character on stage He then started bitching about Daltrey as he started telling the story of it in between songs at the gigs as the audience were mystified as to the then new songs. Pete came over as a bit of a pillock I felt.
I thought that too Moses - Daltrey appreciated the need to explain stuff and keep the audience on board - Townsend just wanted to play and basically couldn't give a **** about the paying public. I like Roger Daltrey a lot actually - seems to be pretty down to earth and fairly matter of fact about being the lead singer of omne of the biggest bands there's ever been! One of my mates' cousins is a member of one of the most successful bands in history and he's the most down to earth bloke you'd meet - I get the impression that the ones who have a settled and happy home life have their feet on the ground to an extent and jsut treat it as any other job. All right for some eh?
The Who were sh*te by the time of Quadrophenia, Tommy etc. I like the early stuff though. Influenced a lot of bands from Oasis to US pop-punk legends The Queers. People try to put us down...
That discounts "Who's Next" then in my opinion the best Who album by a mile. I actually thought the only decent thing they did before Tommy was the excellent Who sell out. Before that I felt they were just basically a singles band. The first albums were really patchy like The Beatles and The Stones.
I did post a comment but the site went into meltdown again! I said that I agreed that they were a singles band - their early stuff was right up there amongst the best, combining the songwriting skills of the (twee) Beatles with the attitude and cool of the Stones, who relied too much on covers (or nearly covers) of R&B songs. Sh*te was a little harsh. X Factor is sh*te!
