THE WHO

Yeah, no. Not really. I tried. I mean, I adore characters like Pete and Keith, but you'd think that with guys like these two in a band, the music would make glass freakin' shatter, ears would bleed dry and drop, all would be sore and continents would shift. But instead you get "Fa la la la la" all over the place, choir boys pasted over a (sometimes) grungy backdrop. Thank God the Beatles only have one "Obladi Oblada", these guys have thousands. Or should I say townshends, ha ha? Hilarious...aaahhh, I'm killing me.

Anyway. Yeah, I think it is said that Pete singlehandedly came up with the concept of rock-opera, which...well, I guess it seemed like a great idea at the time. It's the 'opera' side of The Who that doesn't quite do it for me. And also, I listen to album after album and, I don't know, nothing really sticks out. Are the four of them each crazy in his own corner? Cause I would listen to a song like "Armenia City In The Sky" and wait and wait and fucking wait for it to come together, to start. And nothing. It just ends after almost 4 minutes of flat, boring nonsense.

Oh well, it's probably me...

On the other toe, these people really knew how to tear a stage apart. Man! I'm still confused as to why a band like, say, Nirvana had to come only 20-odd years later when Pete Townshend and Keith Moon left the door wide open for bands like that. The door was actually off its hinges, broken to bits, burned and pissed on. "And that was on a Monday!", to quote Ricky Gervais.

Keith's hobby was blowing up toilets with dynamite. Yeah, yeah I know, petty stuff, I should be more concerned with the music than the gossip, but I think I've covered that in the first paragraph: not really into it. The personalities behind it, however...

So.

Keith would come into the room through the roof. Keith would dive into an empty pool, thinking he'd hit water. Keith would blow up his drumset and half the tv studio with dynamite, again (causing Pete's partial deafness, as well). Keith would pass out on stage and Pete would ask an audience member to fill in for Keith for the duration of the show. Keith would get the band banned from something like 4 hotel chains because Keith would destroy hotel rooms, set fire to stuff etc. Keith would turn the limo around, back to the hotel, 'cause he'd forgotten to throw the tv set out the window; he'd go back to the room, throw the telly into the pool, then back in the limo and off to the airport. I find this hilarious. But then Keith would take 32 pills, of which 6 were enough to kill you, so Keith would finally die. He was 32 when he took the 32 pills: how very OCD of him.

Now, that's what I want from my rock star!

So here's Keith kickin' it:

The Who - The Ox

And here's a weird one.
The Who - Boris the Spider


P.S. The perfect one-gig-wonder band:

Keith Moon - drums
Keith Richards - rhythm guitar
Pete Townshend and/or Jimi Hendrix - guitar
Les Claypool - bass (don't really know crazy bass players. Flea?)
Shane McGowan - vocals

This band would dismember in less than an hour on stage. And it would sound shit.