All language subtitles for WHO - Amazing Journey - MKV (2007) -eng

Corrected by mi0o

(SINGING) I'm not trying
to cause a big sensation

Talking 'bout
my generation

DALTREY:
Whatever happened that day

when Keith Moon joined John,
Pete and myself on the stage,

something happened.

There are billions
of people on this planet.

What the fuck put
four total individuals

together on the stage in
Greenford to make this music?

What the fuck did that?

(WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN
PLAYING)

(AIR RAID SIREN BLARING)

(BOMBS EXPLODING)

TOWNSHEND: Towards the end of the war,
everything was secret.

You never knew whether
you were winning or losing,

and most of the time they
were saying you were winning

when you felt that
you were losing.

I was born into that world.

I was born in the hour that
Albert Speer was arrested.

He was Hitler's
premier architect.

I don't mean war architect.
He was an actual architect.

My father got
these two messages.

One was,
"Speer's been captured,"

and the other was,
"It's a boy, Mr. Townshend."

DALTREY: When I think about my
childhood in the late '40s, '50s,

it's almost like the world
was black and white.

It is very weird.

Very Spartan living.
We were still on food rationing.

No cars in the street.

ENTWISTLE: After the war

there was like bombed-out
buildings that had loads of bricks,

so we didn't need Lego.
We had the real thing.

TOWNSHEND: Practically everybody
that I know that I grew up with,

if they were wild and crazy
and weird, or in a band,

the chances were that they had
some weird shit happen to them

when they were kids.

My parents were both working
dance-band musicians,

and I grew up
with the music of my father,

which was the Basie Band,
the Ellington Band,

and great singers like Sarah Vaughan
and Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald.

And I felt I couldn't even begin to
emulate or occupy their territory.

(JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING)

We were all interested in
traditional jazz at the time.

To me, trad jazz was something that
was already a rebellious threat

to the kind of serene dance-hall
dance music that my father played.

NARRATOR: The first connection
between the four talents of The Who

came in 1959 at a West
London boys' school.

TOWNSHEND: I met John at
Acton County Grammar School.

Big guy. Funny.

Very sharply dressed.

John and Pete didn't really
get to know one another well

until they started at
playing instruments together.

Right from the beginning and
right the way through our life,

he was a great musical ally.

(BORIS THE SPIDER
INSTRUMENTAL PLAYING)

Right over here, you're...
John.

You're John?
John.

And you're from...
London, too.

From London, too?
Yeah.

He was calling himself
John Allison

because his girlfriend was,
of course, called Allison.

We thought "Entwistle" was a really
strange name for a band member.

And we tried John Brown,
and we thought, "Well, no."

"He's John Entwistle."

The Who wouldn't have been
The Who without Entwistle.

He would fill the sound up
with the bass.

If you actually listen to any Who
record and you isolate the bass,

it's pretty astonishing
what he's doing.

It's nothing to do with what
a normal bass player would do.

(SINGING)
I'm gonna raise a fuss

I'm gonna raise a holler

Entwistle stood still.

CHRIS ENTWISTLE: You had Pete swinging
his arm around like a windmill,

you had Roger throwing his
microphone around all over the place,

Keith smacking away
at the drums,

and Dad stood away in the
corner playing quietly.

(SINGING) My boss said

No dice, son,
you gotta work late

Sometimes I wonder

WISE:
I used to get cross

that they didn't show John
so much on the television.

The cameras were always
on Pete and Roge.

He was like the central point
in the spinning world, you know.

I think a lot of people
don't understand

is that what he was doing is he
was playing like a Bach organ.

It was huge, massive,
rich sound.

So I used to find my way
inside that.

And I used to sit with John
and sit inside,

and he would follow me and
support me and we'd play together.

EDGE: John had
such facility as a player

and really very unique.

I don't think anyone had really
gone into lead bass playing.

STAMP: He wasn't actually a quiet guy.

He was just
a very sardonic guy.

Very cynical.
He was very funny,

but in that sort of
laid-back way.

CURBISHLEY:
Entwistle was uncompromising

in leading his own life,
you know.

JOHNS: Afraid John
takes after me.

I like music, dancing,
enjoying myself, drinking.

I love partying.

I never, ever felt

that John had any addictive
problems at all, except one,

which began with an "H."

It's a big shop
in London called Harrods.

That was his one addiction.

ALLISON: He could never
buy one pair of shoes,

he always bought
a dozen, in each color,

and the shirts
and the trousers.

He was certainly
well-dressed.

Don't know about that skeleton
fucking leather thing, though,

that John Entwistle was...
What's all that about?

JOHNS: He was very musical
right from the age of three.

He knew all the pop songs
that were in the charts.

And he'd sing for hours.

My first date with John

was to go to a Boys' Brigade
thing at the Albert Hall.

He used to play
the bugle.

He joined the
school orchestra.

He wanted to play the trumpet,
but they didn't have any left.

The only instrument left
was the French horn.

He practiced in the loo.
He became quite proficient.

DALTREY: John Entwistle
was the only one of us

that kind of had any
musical training at all.

TOWNSHEND: He made his own first
bass with his own hands, you know.

What he realized was that

he had the power to change
the fucking instrument.

You know, you don't change
the trumpet.

But the base guitar
was relatively new.

He started to play it differently,
hold it differently.

Being on stage with a guitar,
with a big amplifier,

it became his voice.

DALTREY: I was walking down the
road one day coming home from work,

I worked in
a sheet-metalwork factory.

I noticed this guy
coming towards me

who I recognized
from being at school.

And across his shoulder he's got
this strange-Iooking instrument.

So, I said to him, you know, stupidly,
"What you got there?"

He said, "It's a bass!"

They all went to
the same school.

Roger was at the same school,
but he got expelled.

ALLISON: I think he was accused
of setting fire to the school.

Roger was a bit
of a tearaway.

DALTREY: It's been said
that I was a bully

later on
in my school career.

But I don't think
I actually was.

I just loved to fight.

Still do.

TOWNSHEND:
When I first met Roger,

he was one of the most
powerful, charismatic

and, literally, powerful men
I'd ever come across.

You know, he was
like Elvis Presley.

DALTREY: Elvis, to me,
was the guy I wanted to be.

But realistically,
the guy who showed me that I could...

Instead of just
dreaming about this,

could actually
go out there and do it,

was a guy called
Lonnie Donegan.

(PLAYING PUTTING ON THE STYLE)

(SINGING) Sweet 16 Goes to
church just to see the boys

Lonnie Donegan was a big
influence on a lot of people.

It was the rhythm, the beat,
and the freshness of it.

(SINGING) He's only
putting on the style, yeah

Putting on the agony

Putting on the style

It had that kind of rock
and roll sort of pace to it.

Skiffle is really basically,
early American folk songs.

It was so easy. Anyone could
make a skiffle groove. You
could do it with home objects.

For drums, we had
an old washing board.

Tea-chest bass,
which is basically a tea chest

with a piece of string
and a broomstick.

It lifted the music
from, like, big bands

into people's parlors.

You could
do it yourself, like.

DALTREY: Every street in
Shepherd's Bush

had its own skiffle group.

NARRATOR: On Fielding Road,
Roger Daltrey founded The Detours

with a guitar he made himself
at the sheet-metal factory.

At the age of 17 or 18, you know,
he was the king of the neighborhood.

So anyway,
I'm walking home from work one night,

and immediately I kind of
felt a bonding with this guy.

So I said, "You in a band?"
And he said, "Yeah, I'm in a band."

I said, "Well, you know,
have you got any work?"

He said, "No."
I said, "Well, we have."

You know, I said,
"Do you get paid when you work?"

He said, "No."
I said, "We do."

I was lying.

And I said, "Well, you know,
we're looking for a bass player.

"Would you like to join?"

Shortly after, Reg Bowen,
on rhythm guitar, left the band,

John said, "Well, I know someone
who's a good rhythm player."

So, we said,
"Well, bring him along."

John was very important for me
because he never let me go.

He could've done. A couple of
the other guys did let me go.

John was very encouraging
to me, and nurturing,

and he used to constantly say to
me, "No, you're a good musician."

He was just vital to me
in those days.

NARRATOR: By 1962, The Detours
were playing pubs as a five-piece.

John on bass,
Doug Sandom on the drums,

Pete played rhythm guitar,

Colin Dawson singing,
Roger playing lead guitar.

It was Roger's band.
The Detours were Roger's band.

And Roger was
the driving force.

And Roger supplied all the energy,
and he drove the van,

and he picked people up
and he arranged everything.

(SINGING) Someway, someday
I'll find a way

To make you see my way

NARRATOR: In '63,
Roger gave up the guitar,

fired the singer,
and took over as frontman.

When there was just
the three of us as a band,

just two instruments,
Pete and John,

the only thing with strings
was Pete and John,

and I remember saying to him,
"It sounds fucking great!"

(SINGING) You see my way

(MAN SINGING BLUES)
Oh, yeah

Oh, yeah

Everything gonna be
all right this morning

TOWNSHEND: All the other
guys in the band were working
for a living, you know,

and I was at art school.
I was on a grant.

I was having an easy life.

I was smoking dope, listening
to, you know, records.

BARNES: I met Pete
when we were in art school,

and I didn't even know
he was in a band.

We'd got this flat

that had belonged to this American guy,
Tom Wright.

DALTREY: Tom Wright,
who had a huge blues

archive from the States...

(SINGING)
Now, when I was a young boy

At the age of five

All that early blues stuff,

John Lee Hooker,
Howlin' Wolf, Jimmy Reed...

STAMP: All those young kids
loved the blues,

because the working class was in
a similar sociological position.

You know what I mean?
To the blacks in America.

My father was in the war.
His ship gets torpedoed.

My mother, who's pregnant,
goes to the shipping office,

as she did every week,
to get his salary.

And they say, "Oh, no,
there's no salary this week, Mrs. Stamp.

"The ship's gone down."

Right? So that was the status
of the working class, right?

(MAN SINGING) Well,
it's a shame, shame, shame

Shame, shame on you

We identified
with American blues

and those early
black American artists.

We started listening to that,
and we thought, "Well this is great."

And we started
playing the blues.

I played the harmonica.

Through that music

we became aware of the
limitations of our drummer.

NARRATOR: Doug Sandom
was fired in April of 1964.

DALTREY: So we got
a session drummer in

for a couple of gigs
we had lined up.

And we were playing
one night

at the Oldfield Hotel
in Greenford.

All I remember is I was standing on
stage getting ready to take a break,

(STAMMERING)
When a gingerbread man

appeared in the audience
in front of me,

looking up at me with his
great big puppy-dog brown eyes.

(CHUCKLING)
He wanted to be a Beach Boy

so he bought some hydrogen
peroxide and bleached his hair

and it'd come out
bright orange.

And he came up, and with all the
arrogance in the world, you know,

"I hear you're looking
for a drummer.

"Well, I'm much better
than the one you've got."

He sat down.

Peter starts off with a pick
screeching down the string.

And it gets into
a very heavy rift.

All of a sudden
it's like a jet engine

started up
in the back of me.

It was like magic.

All of a sudden,
everything worked.

We were just astonished.
This kid was the missing link.

And it was obvious from the first
minute of him playing with us.

The whole dance floor stopped and
started looking. It was extraordinary.

BARNES: You didn't
watch drummers.

He was the only drummer I know
that you'd watch.

Moon was a star.

He was a shooting star,
that's what he was.

He was clearly an alcoholic,
an addict, a sex addict.

(WHO ARE YOU PLAYING)

(SINGING) Who are you?

Who, who?
Who, who?

GOLDSMITH: On the one hand,
he was this lunatic

who, you know, couldn't wait to get on
a drum kit and just explode with it.

(SINGING) Who are you?

And on the other hand,
he was a very quiet, saddened person.

(SINGING) Who are you?

TOWNSHEND: He clearly had
tremendous esteem issue problems.

He was a complex little ball
of difficulty.

(INTERVIEWER SPEAKING)

Just leave and get drunk.

He wasn't like that as a boy.
That's what I can't understand.

I mean, he always did
as he was told.

He was very quiet and I had
no problem with him at all.

He was good boy.

NARRATOR:
By the time he was 16,

Moon was playing
American surf music

in a band called
The Beachcombers.

The Beachcombers was the first
band I remember him having at home

and setting up
in the front room.

Keith liked the Beach Boys.
I didn't like them.

(SINGING MOCKINGLY) "...fun, fun, fun
till her daddy takes the T-Bird away"

Woo, woo
Woo, woo...

You know, and
they would sing away.

(SINGING) Ba ba ba ba Barbara Ann Oh,
Barbara Ann

Ba ba ba
ba Barbara Ann

You got me
rockin' and a-rollin'

Rockin' and a-reelin'
Barbara Ann

TOWNSHEND: He liked to do
those backing vocals,

you know, the girlie backing
vocals in a lot of the songs.

The other thing that's really important,
of course,

is that Keith was
a very lyrical drummer.

Keith was like an orchestra
on the drums.

He wasn't a time
drummer like...

(IMITATES SIMPLE RHYTHM)

It was, like,
all around the kit.

DALTREY:
Moon was doing things

that just made us all
work 100% harder.

Not faster, not slower,
100% harder.

(LEAVING HERE PLAYING)

NARRATOR:
In late April, 1964,

he joined The Detours
and started playing the blues.

(SINGING) Hey, fellas,
have you heard the news?

DALTREY: When you've got a 12-bar
sequence, can become monotonous.

Moonie had "a very short attention
span when it came to boredom.

He started to
double up the beat.

And that led to Pete
doubling the guitar,

it led John to play
more jazzy bits in between,

and from that,
what we became famous for

evolved.

That's when The Who started
to have its own identity.

We played the blues,
but we'd put our own stamp on it.

We'd been The Detours
for quite a while,

and we'd built up quite a
following in West London

on the pub circuit.

TOWNSHEND: John Entwistle,
he'd heard about this band

who'd got a record out in
America called The Detours.

So we sat around and had this
think tank in Sunnyside Road,

where Barney
and I had a flat.

And the band
never came back there.

I don't think
they'd ever been before.

Because Pete and I were
art students smoking dope,

and they didn't approve.

And we were just jokingly
throwing names around.

BARNES: We were trying to be
avant-garde or something.

Think of like, "The Nothing,"
or things with names like that.

I came up with "The Hair."
That was the...

'Cause everything was
about hair at the time.

BARNES: And I said
"The Who,"

'cause basically I was just
thinking of it on posters.

You know, it's one of those
very quick conversations.

"The Hair!"
"The Who!"

And everybody
was laughing at each one.

And for awhile, it was
kind of a bit of a war.

I said, "Well, we could call
it 'The Hair and The Who."'

It sounded like a pub.

DALTREY: But The Who
was something we came back to.

It didn't take very long for us to
carry our audience into the change.

Within two weeks,
they'd forgotten about The Detours

and they knew
that it was The Who.

(CUT MY HAIR PLAYING)

(SINGING) I'm dressed right
for a beach fight

But I just can't explain

JONES: We were the first
teenagers after the war.

All we wanted to do was just
liberate ourselves, really,

and have fun.

REPORTER: South Coast police have warned

that if the fights between rival
gangs of Mods and Rockers continue...

CURBISHLEY: We used to go Brighton,
areas like that,

and it was traditional that
you would end up clashing.

We were teenagers together.
We were Mods.

It was all about
pop-art gang culture.

STAMP: We were called Mods
'cause we were modernist.

There was a type of, like, "Fuck you,"
rebellious sort of behavior

about the Mod kids.

It was very much,
"Let's get out of this class system."

SHAW: The original Mods
were very smart.

Short, Italian jackets,
tight trousers, Winkle Picker shoes.

STAMP: Perfectly tailored sort of
skintight sort of sharkskin suits,

with a little mascara on and a
special haircut on Saturday nights.

CURBISHLEY: We spent
all of our money on clothes.

We were like
little peacocks.

(SINGING) I'm the
hippiest number in town

And I'll tell you why

And I'll tell you why

I'm the snappiest dresser
right down to my inch-wide tie

To my inch-wide tie

Along came this guy called Pete Meaden.
He was a publicist.

And he transformed
the band.

DALTREY: He certainly had
a finger on the pulse

of this embryo
of a fashion seed.

And Pete Meaden
had this theory

that the Mods were like
the new religion,

the new army,
the new everything,

and projected that onto us
as individuals.

DALTREY: He said, "Right,
get out there, cut your hair,

"go out Carnaby Street,
buy all the clever gear,"

and all of a sudden,
we're a Mod band.

Pete Meaden also said, "You've
got to change the name, The Who."

And in that sense,
he was right in getting us to be Mods.

But he was wrong in changing the
name The Who to The High Numbers.

We kept seeing these posters for The
High Numbers, "The Who" in brackets.

ALAN GARRISON: They used to play in
West Hampstead at the Railway Club.

And it was a little hall,
tiny little shabby hall.

The Who came up
as The High Numbers,

and we didn't know who they were.
We just went up there.

And the drummer
was absolutely mental.

(PLAYING I GO TTA DANCE
TO KEEP FROM CRYING)

(SINGING) Gather 'round,
my friends, here

Help me forget
my hurting tears

About the only girl
I ever loved

The only one, baby

I gotta dance just
to keep from crying

Gotta dance just
to keep from crying

Whoa, do the flop

Do the flop

Do the twist
Do the twist

Everybody,
it goes like this

You gotta dance got me swaying got me,
all right

Gotta dance got me swaying got me,
all right

Do the bird
Do the bird

Do the fly
Do the fly

Come on, gang, you know
By, by, by, oh, yeah

They were amazing.
But it was nothing like the Beatles,

even the Stones, you know.
It was nothing like that.

And they were playing music
that you didn't hear very often,

Tamla Motown and blues.

They were a Mod band
and I was a Mod.

(SINGING) Yeah, baby,
so you know it's all right

STAMP: When I met Kit,

we decided to start to come up
with an idea to make a film.

We came up with a concept
that we would find a group,

we would manage
the group to success,

and we would
all the time film it.

This was the idea.

Kit and I, we went up and down
England looking for a group.

We couldn't find anyone
to put in the film, basically,

until we saw The High Numbers.

(SINGING) Let me tell
you 'bout ooh poo pah doo

They call me the most

Yeah, ooh poo pah doo

They call me the most

Lambert said immediately he knew
that was the band he was looking for.

(SINGING) Yeah,
and I won't stop trying

Till I create
a disturbance

DALTREY: We met
Lambert and Stamp,

and the first thing
they wanted to do...

They'd loved
everything else about us,

except the name.

And when we told them we used to be
called The Who, they went, "Great!"

STAMP:
They were very individual.

They didn't really get along,
you know, that personally.

I'd been in a gang in my adolescence.
It wasn't that different.

SHAW: They just
came across...

Not antisocial, but they weren't
there to try to please people.

They were there to do
what they were gonna do,

and if you liked it,
that's up to you.

Pete was using just very
high-volume amplifiers.

He would, because of the power in
the amplifier, create feedback.

(FEEDBACK SCREECHING)

He did this thing where he used
to lift the guitar up like this.

We had a very low
ceiling there.

I used to bang it to make it
go boing, boing, boing, boing.

BARNES: And the guitar neck
went through the ceiling.

And when it broke, I thought, "Well,
I may as well finish it off."

We just stood there and...
"What is going on here? It's great."

(LAUGHING)

I mean, nobody had ever
smashed anything on a stage.

I saw Keith looking at me.

Next week I start banging
my other guitar

and immediately the drums were over,
sticks through.

BARNES:
Pete said afterwards,

"Once I knew that Moonie was with me,
then I would do it again."

TOWNSHEND: The guitar became,
when it was electrified, in my case,

an instrument of control,
aggression, latent violence.

People say to me, you know,
"It's just stagecraft, isn't it?

"Just showing off,
smashing your guitar."

You know, to me it was
far, far, far more than that.

NARRATOR: At art school,

Pete and Barnesy had attended
lectures by Gustav Metzger,

a German artist
who destroyed his creations

as a political protest
against nuclear weapons.

TOWNSHEND: Gustav Metzger came
to my college to do lectures.

It was called the
Destruction in Art Symposium.

Yoko Ono did that thing where
she had her clothes cut up,

and he slashed his way through
a canvas with a samurai sword,

and next thing I knew I'm
breaking up guitars at gigs.

STAMP: I thought it was a bit sort of
airy-fairy, do you know what I mean?

It was a bit sort of like,
"Why bother," you know?

"You're fucking angry,
you're smashing your guitar up,

"it looks great," you know.

It does suggest the rage
that we all feel.

DALTREY: It really did
annoy me that the visual

kind of took over from
what was really going on.

I'd even have the guys
in the band going,

"What a lot of pompous,
pretentious drivel."

And I'd go, "No, it's
autodestructive art!"

Pete, even in those days,
was in a class of his own.

It was this act, you know,
smashing up the instruments,

feedback,
Pete's windmilling arm.

He did this sort of thing that
the kids called the Birdman.

DALTREY: Lambert and Stamp
got us a gig at the Marquee
in the west end of London.

And Kit had this poster made of Pete
with a guitar and the bird-like...

Sideways, and the profile of his nose.

Fabulous.
Absolutely classic.

You could not ignore
that poster.

It was, like,
"What is The Who?"

Within a month,

the queues would be all the
way down Waldorf Street,

and they would be turning
thousands of people away.

It was incredible.

I've got to admit that I
felt that we were special.

(SINGING) Whenever
she calls my name

Yeah, yeah, yeah
I can't explain

I feel
I feel

And I feel
I feel

I feel this burning pain

DALTREY: It's to do
with attitude.

It's like, you can hit your
hand like that, that's a tempo.

Or you can hit it like this.

Now, it's two totally
different attitudes.

The tempo hasn't
changed at all.

And The Who always did it
with that attitude of drive.

(SINGING) Oh, yeah
Oh, yeah

Oh, yeah
Oh, yeah

Heatwave

Burning in my heart
Heatwave

DALTREY: I remember
that the one thing

that we were
very much aware of

was that we were still copying
other people's songs.

NARRATOR: By 1964,

The Beatles were
revolutionizing popular music

with their songwriting.

The Rolling Stones
and the Kinks

joined the British invasion
of America

by recording
original material.

(SINGING) Girl,
you really got me going

You got me so
I don't know what I'm doing

We needed a songwriter
in the group,

and Pete turned out
to be one.

TOWNSHEND: I listened to
a couple of Kinks songs

and just
produced this rhythm.

(PLAYING I CAN'T EXPLAIN)

(SINGING)
Got a feeling inside

Can't explain

It's a certain kind

Can't explain

I feel hot and cold

Can't explain

Yeah, down
in my soul, yeah

Can't explain

DALTREY: Unlike The Kinks,

what, on the surface, appears to
be a very frilly little pop song

is a much, much bigger
statement from the vocal.

You know, "I've got a feeling
inside I can't explain."

And you could see that Townshend
as a writer had a huge potential.

'Cause he wasn't going the
normal way that pop songs go.

It was going internal.

Can't explain

I think it's love

Try to say it to you
when I feel blue

But I can't explain

But back in those early days,
I thought, you know,

"I'm not gonna write songs forever,"
you know?

"This is boring."
You know?

I really thought Can't
Explain was quite childish.

NARRATOR: Pete's home-recorded demo
of the song would get them signed.

He was 19.

He had it on tape, which I played
over the phone to Shel Talmy.

The demo I heard was about a
minute and 10 seconds long.

Probably safe to say in about
the first 30 to 45 seconds

I said, "Yes!"

I said,
"I will get us a deal."

DALTREY: Kit told us
this recording deal.

And I mean,
I'm a Shepherd's Bush boy.

You know, I work
the markets.

When Kit told us
our percentage,

it had something like a couple
of cents on the end of it.

BARNES: When Kit Lambert and Chris
Stamp were managing the band,

they got
a very bad deal then.

SHAW: I went around
to all the record shops,

gave them free copies,
gave them posters.

And I helped
push it that way.

But then, luckily,
Radio Caroline played it.

(WOMAN SINGING)
Caroline, sign of the nation

Caroline!

(I CAN'T EXPLAIN
PLAYING ON RADIO)

RADIO DJ:
12:00 midnight tonight.

Steve Young along
until 3:00 a. M...

THE WHO ON RADIO:
Got a feeling inside

Can't explain

Radio Caroline was the first
of the pirate radio station.

'Cause radio was controlled
in England by the BBC.

And suddenly these ships
out of England jurisdictions

started to pump the music
out into England

and took off
like a rocket.

DALTREY: The truth is,
without pirate radio,

the English invasion and all that
pop scene would not have happened.

(SINGING) Can't explain

I think it's love

Try to say it to you
when I feel blue

I can't explain

NARRATOR: Released
January 15, 1965,

I Can't Explain would climb
to number eight

on the new
Musical Express chart.

TOWNSHEND: I was driving
over Hammersmith Flyover

and heard Can't Explain
on the radio,

and thought, "Wow!"

You know, "I've got a commission,
I've got a patron,

"This is art."

NARRATOR: Brunswick Records sold
104,000 copies of the single.

The boys made �250 each.

(SINGING) I said
I can't explain

(AUDIENCE CHEERING)

It was chaos, 'cause we were
smashing up all this equipment,

and I had no money.

I used to take
all Pete's guitars

and in between a show putting
them together. It was all...

While one was being glued,

the other one would be
all set from the day before.

And the main thing was
"Keep the band working."

(AUDIENCE SCREAMING)

(SINGING) I can go any way

Way I choose

I can live anyhow

Win or lose

I can go anywhere

DALTREY: In those days,
it wasn't uncommon for us

to do a show
at 8:00 till 9:00,

travel 150 miles,

and then do another show
at midnight till 1:00

We used to take
amphetamines.

Only I discovered
that taking amphetamines

didn't go with
being a good singer.

(SINGING) Oh, see

C. C. Rider

Oh, see

What you have done now

DALTREY: And it build up
like no tomorrow,

and their playing
became just a noise.

The tempos
went out the window,

volumes
went out the window,

and everything
we'd worked to be good at

suddenly disappeared out the window,
due to amphetamines.

So it all came to a head
at one show

where I just gave up onstage,
left the stage,

went back
to the dressing room,

got the bag
of amphetamines

and made these guys
flush them down the toilet.

Moon went up like a rocket
and hit me with a tambourine.

I laid into Moonie,
we ended up in a real good punch-up.

The roadies pulled us
apart, of course,

but the damage
had been done.

Basically, I was thrown
out of the band.

At that moment,
I didn't give a fuck,

'cause if that was
gonna be the band,

as they had been
on amphetamines,

wasn't worth being in
anyway.

(SINGING) So sad about us

He had been this sort of tough guy,
boss of the group.

Roger puts
this band together,

and then finds the three dwarfs
that he's brought in to support him

suddenly sort of
leaving him behind.

(SINGING) Sad
that the news is out now

DALTREY: It was the first time
in my life that I realized

that I loved something else
other than myself.

And I thought, "Well, if I'm being
thrown out for being like I was,

"then I'll have to change,

"because the band is more
important to me than anything."

After about four weeks,
they came back and said,

"Look, you're back in the band
but you're on probation.

"And one more outburst
like that and you're out."

STAMP: Where's
Pete at?

I have absolutely no idea.
Better go and find him.

NARRATOR: Four weeks after
the blow-up in Copenhagen,

The Who returned to the studio
to record Pete's latest creation.

When you're a kid and you pick
up a guitar for the first time,

you just wanna
make that sound.

(PLAYING MY GENERATION)

(PLAYING MY GENERATION)

(SINGING) People try
to put us down

Talking 'bout
my generation

Just because
we get around

Talking 'bout
my generation

STAMP: My Generation
was the song

that I felt an immediate
sort of thing for.

(SINGING) I hope I die
before I get old

This had to be
the essence of The Who.

(SINGING) My generation

This is my generation, baby

JOHNS: I can remember the
My Generation session very clearly,

because it was so unusual.

The fact that
he stuttered on it.

I mean, if, you know,
I thought that was absolutely brilliant.

(SINGING) I'm not trying
to cause a big sensation

Talking 'bout
my generation

TOWNSHEND: Roger's got a story about
the stutter. And so does Chris Stamp.

They're both
well out of order.

The stutter came from
John Lee Hooker!

It was to do with
the pilled-up Mod

and the old blues
stutter and so.

And when I put it on at the first demo,
it was partly there.

And Chris Stamp said,
"What's that?"

And I said,
"I'm stuttering."

And I think maybe he didn't
realize that I meant to stutter.

I don't remember it being on the demo.
It might have been.

My memory's
not that good on it.

And does it really matter?

(SINGING) My generation

This is my generation, baby

(ENTWISTLE SOLOING)

STING: I marveled
at that bass line.

(BASS RUMBLING)

Very flashy, very effective,
and completely original.

I don't know
where it came from.

(IMITATING BASS RIFF)

It was fantastic.

Amazing. The bass solo
in My Generation.

If you could write that
into words,

that's what you'd have on
your gravestone, wouldn't it?

(SINGING) People try
to put us down

Talking 'bout
my generation

(STUTTERING) Just because we get around

Talking 'bout
my generation

TOWNSHEND: We're talking about very,
very early days here.

I think back to those days,
and I just...

I think it was
really painful.

(SINGING) Talking 'bout
my generation

My generation

We hadn't really respected the
difficulties that Roger had, you know?

It's wrong for me to say this, but,
you know,

Keith was a genius.
John was a genius.

I was certainly,
you know, on the edge of it.

You know,
Roger was a singer.

That was it.

I just

decided within myself

that I would never let them,
whatever they did to me,

whatever they did,

I would, wouldn't ever
react like that again to them.

And I became a completely different
guy as far as that's concerned.

But I struggled more than
anything to find a voice,

a real voice for this band.

(SINGING)
This is my generation

(PLAYING
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT)

(SINGING) I don't mind

Other guys
dancing with my girl

That's fine,
I know them all pretty well

But I know sometimes I
must get out in the light

Better leave her behind

With the kids,
they're all right

The kids are all right

Now, ambitions in those days
were very, very simple.

To be rich and famous.
We made no excuses for it.

We just got out of having our
ass hanging out of our trousers.

I don't make any apologies for
wanting to be rich and famous.

Thank you very much.

(SINGING) I was born with
a plastic spoon in my mouth

The north side of my town
faced east

And the east
was facing south

NARRATOR: The Who played 60 shows
through the first 90 days of 1966.

And we have got for you the most
controversial group in England!

Ladies and gentlemen,
The Who!

The Who!
The Who!

WOMAN: (IN FRENCH) Les Who!
MAN: The Who.

MAN: The Who!
The Who!

(SINGING) One girl
was called Jean Marie

Another little girl
was called Felicity

TOWNSHEND: You know, it used to
feel to me that the band was doomed.

You know, I'm going off with this
fucking horrible band of yobbos.

You know, to Germany,
and to Sweden, and to...

And with people with whom I had
absolutely nothing in common,

whatsoever. Nothing.

They were
at each other a lot.

DALTREY: The Who
was built on competition.

The competition was horrendous,
on and off the stage.

BARNES: Then it got great

because it became wonderfully
sort of on edge because of that.

I mean, you could be watching
The Who in, like, '66, '67 period

when they were gigging.

And in the middle
of a show,

suddenly Pete would, like, get the
guitar and whack it around Roger's...

It was fantastic.

You see, everyone
was really on edge

watching them all the time,
you know.

(SINGING) I wanna play
cricket on the green

Ride my bike
across the stream

Cut myself
and see my blood

I wanna come home
all covered in mud

I'm a boy, I'm a boy
But my ma won't admit it

I'm a boy, I'm a boy
I'm a boy

TOWNSHEND: Roger talks now very
romantically about those days,

like it was
some kind of magic.

You know, I don't think
there was a lot of magic.

What there was was a lot of,
you know, brute force.

(SINGING) I'm a boy!

GALLAGHER: Nobody knew
what they were doing.

Those bands were managed by kids.
Do you know what I mean?

Who didn't have a fucking clue
what they were doing either.

NARRATOR: In March of '66,
The Who and their management

broke their contract
with producer Shel Talmy

and began making
their own records.

STAMP: Very early on,
Kit and I realized

that if we weren't in control
of the recording,

and how it went,
and what happened,

it would just be hopeless.

We would lose
this gigantic piece

of what the destiny
of the group was.

And so we had to get
out of that contract.

(SINGING)
Now it's a legal matter, baby

NARRATOR: Lambert and Stamp
started their own company,

Track Records.

STAMP: I was like
the executive producer.

Kit was the overall
sort of musical director.

Day to day, right?
In the studio.

(PICTURES OF LILY PLAYING)

(SINGING) I used to wake up
in the morning

I used to feel so bad

Kit Lambert,
he had these great ideas,

but he wasn't really
technically very good.

CURBISHLEY: Kit was the ultimate
Barnum and Bailey conman

in a lot of ways.

He would bluster his way
through things, you know,

and he had a lot of front
and courage in that way.

Big fucking pain in the ass,
you know, in the studio.

But he made it funner.

(SINGING FALSETTO)
Pictures of Lily...

You know, I can do it, if... You know,
once I get used to sort of...

TOWNSHEND: Just do it with confidence.

Just hit it,
d'you know?

KIT: Keith, when you hit
the very high note,

back off a bit because
you're really piercing

because of the height
of the thing.

So you keep
jumping on John's...

John's usually louder than
everyone else anyway. You know?

And if anyone needs backing up,
it's sort of me, you know?

KIT: You cut through everything anyway,
on that note.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(ALL LAUGHING)

(MOON MOANING)

(PLAYING PICTURES OF LILY)

Kit Lambert's father, Constant
Lambert created the Royal Ballet.

Created the Royal Ballet.

Kit had gone into film

because he didn't want to be
anything to do with music.

And suddenly, you know,
life rips him back in

right in the middle of music,
only a different type.

(SINGING) And I ask you,
"Hey mister, have you ever seen

"Pictures of Lily?"

I would say to Kit, "No,
I really want to write a fucking opera."

You know, "I don't wanna write
rock songs all the time."

And he constantly
encouraged me

on the basis
of his background.

(SINGING) Her man's been gone

For nearly a year

He was due home yesterday

But he ain't here

STAMP: It was called
the mini-opera,

A Quick One
While He's Away,

which is an English way
of saying, you know,

you have a quick fuck while
the husband's away, right?

Do you know what I mean?
That was the story.

(SINGING) Down your street Your
crying is a well-known sound

STAMP: It was a big
operatic piece

told in these sort of six or seven
one-minute or two-minute pieces of song.

(SINGING) We have a remedy
You'll appreciate

No need to be so sad

He's only late

TOWNSHEND:
Kit kept saying to me,

"You know, my father, Constant Lambert,
would have loved The Who."

So he was very supportive,
and that's how that grew.

STAMP: Probably the most
important relationship

that Kit and Pete had
was each other.

(SINGING) You are forgiven

NARRATOR: During the recording
session for A Quick One,

Lambert introduced the band

to one of the first artists
signed by the new Track Records.

He came to the studio before he
became the legendary Jimi Hendrix.

And he was just
a guitarist in a soul band.

(SINGING) You are forgiven

(SPOKEN) You're forgiven.

(RUN, RUN, RUN PLAYING)

(SINGING) Run, run, run

Run, run, run

STAMP: We'd always been
looking at the United States

because that was sort of like the
home of the music that we loved.

They just wanted
to crack America

and you just toured
and toured and toured.

GOLDSMITH: The Who were a band
that represented Britishness

and everything
that London stood for.

NARRATOR: They wore it on their
backs for their British invasion.

(SINGING)
You better run, run, run

Run, run, run

STAMP: We couldn't just
come over here

and make a couple of
hit tunes, like pop hits.

If they took The Who,
they had to take the whole package.

NARRATOR: In March of 1967,

they played a nine-day
showcase in New York City.

Three months later,
they went with their new label-mate

to Monterey, California.

(SAN FRANCISCO PLAYING)

(SINGING) If you're going
to San Francisco

DALTREY: Monterey
was a big one for us.

I mean, before we even
got to Monterey,

Monterey was built up in my
imagination as an enormous event.

ENTWISTLE: The worst
thing about Monterey

was we found out from
one of our ex-roadies

that Hendrix was
gonna steal our act.

TOWNSHEND: Jimi was
out of his brain on acid

and wouldn't discuss
who would go on first.

It wasn't that we didn't
want to follow him.

We just wanted to get our act,
you know, done first.

We were kind of choked up
because we were in debt

because
we smashed our guitars,

and then suddenly someone was
gonna come along from nowhere

and steal it in front
of all those people.

EMCEE: I'd like to
introduce you to an act

who have been passed by
slightly in America,

but they won't be
after this.

This is The Who, this one.

(PEOPLE CHEERING)

(PLAYING MY GENERATION)

(SINGING) People try
to put us down

Talking 'bout
my generation

They played with kind of
a sense of abandon

in a way that hadn't
been done before.

I mean, the absolute abandon.

(SINGING) I hope I die
before I get old

Talking 'bout
my generation

EDGE: It was a sort
of exorcism.

The performances
just went off

into a kind of emotional meltdown,
in a sense,

which I don't think anyone
had ever seen before.

DALTREY: The visual was a
ritualistic slaughter of a guitar.

But the sound of that slaughter
was fucking brilliant.

It was the best jazz,
it was the best rock and roll.

It was something like no
one had ever done before.

And I still love it
to this day.

(AUDIENCE ROARING)

TOWNSHEND: We made the house stand
up and roar and scream and shout.

It's the first time
they'd ever seen it.

They'd heard about it, but
they'd never seen it happen.

And then Hendrix came on,
played fairly well,

and set his guitar alight, slung
it in the air and did it all again.

And this time the crowd got
up with the same kind of roar,

but slightly mystified.
"Now, what's going on here?" You know.

(FEEDBACK SCREECHING)

TOWNSHEND:
After Monterey Pop,

I became very disturbed
about acid.

Coming back from Monterey,
on the plane, he got a really bad trip,

and vowed he wouldn't take any
more psychedelic drugs after that.

TOWNSHEND: I just started
to get really sickened

by LSD and acid,
and by psychedelia.

But I'd also been
inspired by it.

There was no question
I'd been inspired.

So I was confused by it.

Within about two months of that,
he was into Meher Baba.

I found him through a man
called Mike McInnerney.

I was talking to Pete
about it.

I think Pete, like every other
rock and roll star,

was not having
a good time sometimes.

TOWNSHEND: And he gave me
a book called The God-Man,

about this guy
called Meher Baba.

NARRATOR: He was a Persian born
in India who took a vow of silence

and kept it
for most of his life.

True believers called him an avatar,
God on Earth.

McINNERNEY:
The very, very simple thing

that Baba asked you to do
was to love him.

There's a difficulty
there, for a start,

when you're in rock and roll,
and you're a performer,

and you're having to do all
the stuff that Pete had to do.

And yet he chooses to try
and make a spiritual journey

at the same time.

NARRATOR: The year Pete wrote
I Can't Explain,

Meher Baba warned against
searching for God in a pill.

TOWNSHEND: To the sincere
seeker after truth,

experimentation with drugs
may well open doors,

but continued use will lead to madness,
death and insanity.

And, you know,
from what I've seen,

there are very, very,
very few exceptions.

We were booked on a tour, bottom
of the bill, with Herman's Hermits.

You can imagine Herman's
Hermits' audience, right,

with sort of thirteen-year-old
middle-class girls.

They were introduced to
their first piece of danger.

(SINGING) I want
the Magic Bus

I want the Magic Bus

They just ran.

(CHUCKLES) They just ran to the back
of the hall until Herman came on.

(SINGING)
Too much, the Magic Bus

NARRATOR: In Georgia,
Moonie discovered fireworks stands.

And in Michigan,
he celebrated his 21st birthday.

BOB PRIDDEN: I do remember a car
did end up in the swimming pool.

I don't know whether it was
a Lincoln Continental,

but a car did end up
in the swimming pool

and there was
a lot of carnage.

However much of that
is true, you don't know.

I mean, I want it all to be true.
You know, you want...

You wanna think that he drove his
Rolls Royce into a swimming pool.

I mean, he's Keith Moon,
for crying out loud.

NARRATOR: The truth is,
several cars were damaged

as well as several rooms
in the hotel.

Moonie chipped a tooth
running from the law,

and The Who was banned
from Holiday Inns for life.

And over here, the guy
who plays the sloppy drums.

Follow the Yellow
Brick Road, yes.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road?
What's your name?

Keith.
Keith?

My friends call me Keith.
You can call me John.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

What's the next song
you're gonna do?

(STUTTERING)
My Generation.

Your generation?
Yeah.

I can really identify
with that

because I really identify
with these guys. I dig them.

(BICYCLE HORN HONKS)
And this is a...

You know, you got sloppy
stagehands around here.

(PLAYING MY GENERATION)

NARRATOR: On the last gig of the trip,
they smashed up their gear

for the first time
on American television.

Keith bribed that sloppy
stagehand to overstuff his drum

with a dangerous amount
of explosives.

ENTWISTLE: Moon managed to fulfill
the outrageous part of the band

and we just let him get on
with it and he was outrageous.

(KEITH MOCK CRYING)

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

(CYMBALS CRASHING)

Good, guys.

(HAPPY JACK PLAYING)

(SINGING) Happy Jack wasn't old,
but he was a man

BARNES: I think obviously Pete
wanted a bigger challenge

than just a three-minute
single, you know.

And he wanted to write something much
more complex and detailed and layered.

(SINGING) The kids
couldn't hurt Jack...

NARRATOR: In four years, The Who had
released eight singles in the UK,

all of them top-10 hits.

Singles drove the market.
Once the single happened,

you immediately
went to an album.

As much as we loved
the three-minute single,

the value was more than
just a three-minute single.

And it could add up
to a lot more.

NARRATOR: In December, 1967,
The Who produced a piece of pop art.

TOWNSHEND: The only time that I'd
even approached my art-school training

was in Who Sell Out.

Doing commercials,
writing songs about products,

and all of that
kind of stuff.

(SINGING) Coca-Cola
Things go better with Coke

Tell us a little about it,
because it's a very unusual concept.

We want the album
to run very smoothly

and perhaps have the atmosphere
of a pirate radio station,

so we've done a commercial for
Jaguar cars, Heinz baked beans.

And each one, funnily enough,
has opened up

a fairly unique opportunity
musically,

which we wouldn't have got just
through our normal numbers.

Keith, play what we did yesterday.
Oh, you done, then?

PEEL: Could you do that?
It'd be very bold of you.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

Pete realized
he was onto something.

We knew the album was
gonna be the new art form.

NARRATOR: Rock music
changed the business in 1968.

That year, for the first time,
people bought more albums than singles.

BARNES: I used to say the '60s
was like a renaissance, almost.

But the one art form
or means of communication

that was more important than all
the others was popular music.

RADIO JINGLE: More music,
more music, more music, more music...

(I CAN SEE FOR MILES PLAYING)

NARRATOR: The Who toured
the UK, Europe, Australia,

they went coast-to-coast
across North America twice.

(SINGING) I know
you've deceived me

Now here's a surprise

I know that you have

'Cause there's magic
in my eyes

I can see
for miles and miles

And miles and miles

And miles

Oh, yeah

We put out
I Can See For Miles,

and it quite clearly
wasn't gonna change the world,

and it was the best possible
thing I could ever write.

So, I just thought, "Well,
what do we do now? We're fucked."

(SINGING) Here's a poke at you
You're gonna choke on it, too

You're gonna lose that smile

Because all the while

I can see for miles and miles

I can see for miles and miles

TOWNSHEND: I went away and I thought,
"I have to save this band.

"I have to do it.

"Kit can't do it. Keith can't do it.
Roger can't do it.

"I have to do it."

STAMP: Pete comes up
with this idea

of this deaf, dumb
and blind boy.

The only way
he connects with life

is he feels the vibes, right?

The vibes
are music, right?

That was it.
That was like...

You know the screenplay written
on the back of a cigarette packet?

That's what Pete's idea was.

Well, it's a bit like an opera,
but in actual fact, it's a rock opera.

It's modern music as such.

It's the story of Tommy,
the deaf, dumb and blind boy,

and his journey through to extreme
high levels of consciousness,

despite the fact that
he's deaf, dumb and blind.

(PLAYING I'M FREE)

(SINGING) I'm free

I'm free

And freedom tastes of reality

It's all part of reincarnation
and levels of consciousness
and stuff like this.

Meher Baba stuff.

Baba might have provided
spiritual glue

which made sense
of the travails

this character
was going through,

and the symbolism,
if you like.

If you think about the wound of all
the working-class war kids, right,

it's that we didn't
have a voice.

You know, we couldn't see.

We all had exactly
the same experience.

You know, when you went
to Grandad and you said,

"What do you think made the
fucking Germans do that?"

He'd go, "I don't want
to talk about it!

"I don't want to
fucking talk about it!"

You know,
kind of, "Fuck off!"

(1921 PLAYING)

(SINGING) You didn't hear it
You didn't see it

You won't say nothing
to no one ever in your life

You never heard it

Oh, how absurd it
All seems without any proof

TOWNSHEND: We had all these
fucking lies we grew up with.

Tommy was so much rooted
in my childhood story.

NARRATOR: Recording began
in the fall of '68

and lasted six months.

Pete, at the time, was writing
a song a week, and literally...

Or even a song
the same evening

as we'd been in the studio
in the afternoon.

And he'd come in the next day
and say, "Here's the next one,
and here's the next one."

TOWNSHEND: That was when the ideas
from the other guys in the band

started to come in.

(SINGING) I'm your wicked
Uncle Ernie

I'm glad you can't see
or hear me

As I fiddle about

Fiddle about
Fiddle about

John Entwistle came up with two
really very, very powerful songs

about abuse and bullying
that I couldn't write myself

because of my own childhood
tenderness on the subject.

(SINGING) Down with the
bedclothes Up with your nightshirt

Fiddle about Fiddle about Fiddle about

DALTREY: His input
shouldn't be underestimated.

I mean, the antagonists,

like Uncle Ernie,
or initially he is, and Cousin Kevin,

are just as important
as the hero.

It gave the whole thing
a balance.

Good morning,
campers!

(SINGING)
I'm your Uncle Ernie

And I'll welcome you
to Tommy's Holiday Camp

TOWNSHEND: Keith Moon came up
with the idea

that the temple,
the bizarre church that I created,

should actually be
a British holiday camp.

(SINGING)
The holiday's forever

Ha, ha!

In that moment,
all of the elements of it come together.

And instead of talking
about the trouble

that we'd created
a couple of years ago,

we were talking
about the project,

we were talking about
what we could do with it.

(SINGING)
You don't answer my call

With even a nod or a wink

But you gaze at your own
reflection, all right

You don't seem to see me

But I think
you can see yourself

How can the mirror
affect you?

INTERVIEWER: Can you explain,
in any kind of way,

what satisfaction
you get from it?

Yeah. Sexual.

I've always loved balls.

And to see big, shiny
silver balls

running around
a playground like this,

I can get a certain
amount of satisfaction

building up a score that's gonna
knock everybody else into oblivion,

which, you know,
which I do often.

(PLAYING PINBALL WIZARD)

They came up with this idea
of introducing pinball

into this bizarre,
strange story.

It was going
all over the place.

(SINGING) Ever since
I was a young boy

I've played
the silver ball

From Soho
down to Brighton

I must have
played them all

But I ain't seen
nothing like him

In any amusement hall

That deaf, dumb and blind kid

Sure plays a mean pinball

BARNES: Pete said,
"I thought it was rubbish."

He said, "I didn't know whether
I should bother finishing it."

And he played it
and everyone went quiet

until someone said,
"That's the number one."

And he went (GROANS).
You know.

He couldn't see
that it was good.

(SINGING)
He's a pinball wizard

There has to be a twist

A pinball wizard

He's got such a supple wrist

TOWNSHEND: Roger suddenly
decided that he would be Tommy.

I was supposed to sing Tommy.

He said, "Can I be Tommy?"

And I remember
thinking,

"Yeah!"

(SINGING) See me

Feel me

Touch me

Heal me

It was only really, though,
when we got onstage with Tommy
as a complete piece of music

that I really found my feet
and found The Who voice.

(SINGING) Touch me

Feel me

TOWNSHEND: Roger suddenly became
this different kind of singer.

(SINGING) Feel me

He'd never had that quality
that he now has,

which is of going up to the
audience and engaging them

and opening his body to them,
you know, and that kind of nakedness,

instead of being a really tight
little kind of, "I'm a vicious mug,

"don't get in my way"
kind of thing.

(SINGING) Listening to you

I get the music

Gazing at you

I get the heat

Following you

I climb the mountain

I get excitement at your feet

It was a role. He actually lived
each song as it went through.

(SINGING) I've got a feeling
21 is gonna be a good year

Especially if you and me
See it in together

So you think
21 is gonna be a good year

STAMP: Rock 'n' roll was still
being seen on a very bad level.

The sound systems weren't good.
You couldn't hear it properly.

So we thought, "Well,
let's use opera houses."

(SINGING) I had no reason
to be over-optimistic

STAMP: The group played
Tommy truly as an opera,

and it was, like, fantastic

'cause you had these ancient,
beautiful acoustical places, right?

And this audience
hearing their music

played this way
for the first time.

NARRATOR: After
18 months of touring,

The Who played one final
opera house in New York City,

the Metropolitan.

(PLAYING I'M FREE)

STAMP: They really didn't
want us to go in there.

They really didn't want
to put rock 'n' roll

in the Metropolitan
Opera House, right?

The worst snobs turned out
to be Americans, right?

We got in.

And when we got in,
Decca Universal re-released Tommy.

It just sold again like five times
what it had sold the first time.

It became like
one of those huge albums.

That was
the printing-money era.

(SINGING) Can you
Can you hear me?

How can he be saved?

CURBISHLEY: Tommy was huge,
and did take the band along on its coattails.

Tommy, in its own way,
became as big as The Who.

(SINGING) Waking up
on Christmas morning

Hours before
the winter sun's ignited

They believe in dreams
and all they mean

Including Heaven's generosity.

Peeping 'round the door to see What
parcels are for free in curiosity

BARNES: They were developing this
high-powered sound for live gigs.

And it's absolutely incredible

that you could get that fantastic, full,
rich rock sound

out of just a guitar,
a bass guitar and a drum.

(SINGING) Listening to you

I get the music

Gazing at you

I get the heat

Following you

I climb the mountain

I get excitement at your feet

Come on!

I started to feel accepted
again in the band during Tommy.

TOWNSHEND: Roger became Tommy,
became this figure, then it equalized.

And then we were unbelievably potent,
because we were balanced.

It was a marriage,
but it was a good marriage.

Those were glorious years.

(SINGING) Right behind you

I see the millions

On you

I see the glory

From you

I get opinions

From you

I get the story

(BEHIND BLUE EYES PLAYING)

(SINGING) No one knows what
it's like to be the bad man

To be the sad man

Behind blue eyes

I think that Pete has
always felt the pressure

of being the guy who
came up with the ideas.

It was such a special gift
that he had.

(SINGING) No one knows
what it's like to be hated

To be fated

To telling only lies

DALTREY: I went through
terrible periods

where I would want to be
getting closer to him

but I had to push myself away
because he was in a creative thing,

and you kind of felt that if you
left him alone, it would be better.

But it must have been,
for Pete, incredibly Ionely.

It must have felt, sometimes,
that we didn't give a fuck about him.

(SINGING)
I have hours, only Ionely

My love is vengeance

That's never free

It took a terrible toll
on him. After Tommy,

they said, "Now what are you
going to do next," you know?

NARRATOR: In 1971, Pete conceived
the first interactive rock show.

He imagined fans connected to the band,
the music, the art.

The futuristic performance was to be
filmed for a movie and called Lifehouse.

The trouble is,
with Lifehouse,

no one I've ever met,
apart from Pete, ever understood it.

At the time,
people just thought I was nuts.

NARRATOR:
Including his mentor.

Behind my back, Kit Lambert was
telling everybody that I was insane,

and that what we were really
doing was making a movie of Tommy,

and he was directing it.

Pete said,
"I've had enough of that.

"I mean, we're gonna be known just
for Tommy. It's bigger than the band."

That was the point at which Kit
just exploded the relationship.

(SINGING) No one knows what
it's like to be the bad man

To be the sad man

Behind blue eyes

NARRATOR: In the spring of '71,
Lifehouse was abandoned.

(PLAYING BABA O'RILEY)

The songs for Lifehouse
became the basis

of The Who's most successful album,
Who's Next.

The opening track
was an anthem

named in part for Pete's
spiritual guide, Meher Baba.

TOWNSHEND: The nerve
of having something open

with that huge, long
synthesizer intro, which...

Everyone in rock at the time said,
"You can't have an intro like that

"'cause the radio
won't play it," you know.

He claims, Pete says,
that those riffs are...

That he put Meher Baba's birth into the
computer, and this is what came out.

I'd, "Yeah, yeah,
I know you, Pete, you're... Right."

You know, "Like hell."

(SINGING)
Out here in the fields

I fight for my meals

TOWNSHEND: One of the first messages
that I received directly from Meher Baba

was that he recognized me,

that I was one of his,
as it were.

And he died two years later,
so I never met him.

(SINGING) Don't cry

Don't raise your eye

It's only teenage wasteland

Sally, take my hand

Travel south 'cross land

Put out the fire

And don't look past
my shoulder

NARRATOR: Following the tour
for Who's Next,

Pete went to India to visit the
tomb of his spiritual guide.

Beloved Baba
sends his love to you.

He is always with you,
in you and near you,

and he says,
"Be happy and not to worry."

In a sense, I was engaged in
some kind of sabotage, you know.

I was inside this very, very macho
group that smashed its guitars

and had a reputation
for being quite rebellious,

trying to spread this message
of love and peace.

(THE REAL ME PLAYING)

(SINGING) I went back
to the doctor

To get another shrink

I sit and tell him
about my weekend

But he never betrays
what he thinks

Can you see
the real me, Doctor?

Doctor?

Can you see
the real me, Doctor?

Oh, Doctor!

NARRATOR: In 1973, Pete
crafted a second rock opera.

Quadrophenia was set against the
rumble of the Mods and Rockers.

(SINGING) She said,
"I know how it feels, son

"'Cause it runs in the family"

TOWNSHEND: I wanted Kit
to be a part of Quadrophenia,

even though it was
done and dusted.

Chris Stamp said,
"Well, he's in New York,

"and he's got a bit of a problem.
He's become a heroin addict."

DALTREY: After Tommy,
the drugs changed.

We lost a bit of our vision.

The dynamic of wealth introduced
into this family was what changed it.

Kit and Chris were fighting
on a daily basis.

They began to fall apart
as partners

and they began
to fall apart as people.

It was quite obvious that Kit was
now into quite heavy substances.

And money was going missing.

It wasn't a matter of
they were trying to screw us.

They were just
completely of control.

We became
the problem, right?

So if we were to go,
the problem would resolve itself.

Now, I've never
understood that.

Because, although we may
have been fucked up,

we could still utter one decent idea
once a week from our stupor, you know?

So, I don't know. It ended.

NARRATOR: The band turned to Bill
Curbishley to take over management.

I looked at the past contracts and what
they were achieving as live performers,

and I felt that could be
dramatically changed.

(SINGING) Bell boy!

I've got to get running now

Bell boy!

NARRATOR: Having set
their affairs in order,

he urged them
to tour Quadrophenia.

(SINGING)
Carry the bloody baggage out

Bell boy!

Always running
at someone's heel

NARRATOR: But Pete's new opera was much
more demanding live than Tommy had been.

TOWNSHEND: What happened on Quadrophenia
was is that I had absolute control,

and everybody involved
in it was like my puppet.

And I think by the very, very end of it,
Roger just got sick of it.

Roger and Pete had
a fight in rehearsals.

DALTREY: Pete just got
really angry with me.

Takes his guitar and hits me
over the shoulder with it.

So the road crew,
they jump on me.

I was holding Pete back and the
roadies were holding Roger back.

And I hadn't done anything!

Pete turned around and said,
"Yeah! Let me go! Let me go!"

So, I thought, fine.
I let him go.

And he just came at me.
He was so drunk.

And he walked up
to Roger and...

I just managed to catch him
with a very lucky punch.

Whack.

Completely
knocked him spark out.

His feet left the ground and
he hit his head on the stage.

And he was unconscious
and I thought, "Fuck."

We were all exhausted.

It's a magnificent piece of work,
you know, absolutely magnificent.

It's our towering triumph,
Quadrophenia.

So, in a sense, you know, a little bit
of blood spilt on the way is nothing.

NARRATOR: As boys, they played
dance halls and pubs.

ANNOUNCER: Here they are,
The Who!

NARRATOR: Less than a decade later,
they were headlining stadiums.

As The Who developed,
so had the business.

CURBISHLEY: Just think about the
feeling to walk onto a stage,

and you've got 60,000 people
out there to see you.

Adulation from masses
of people is power.

And it distorts.

The adrenaline that you get from stage,
it's incredibly good

when it's used.

But if you can't use it,
it's incredibly destructive.

TOWNSHEND: Keith and John together
were a dangerous double act.

I was very naive. I didn't realize
how much coke they were doing,

as well as drinking.
And Keith was doing everything else.

TOWNSHEND: Mandrakes
to go to sleep. He'd...

Elephant tranquilizer.

Anything anybody gave him,
he would do it.

DALTREY: Who knows what
was going on in his brain?

I sometimes feel that he started
to believe that he was invincible.

"I can take anything.
I'm Keith Moon of The Who."

He was falling down
with drug overdoses

on the stage
during the shows!

I thought if we kept doing
what we were doing, you know,

Keith was gonna die!

NARRATOR: After
the Quadrophenia tour,

The Who did not take the
stage again for 16 months.

DALTREY: We were off the road
for long periods of time.

And that in itself
was destructive to Keith.

Keith just used
to go out on benders

because he didn't have
nothing else to do.

BUTLER: He loved dressing up.

But the trouble is,
he'd end up in a nightclub

with him dressed up
as a tart or a cavalier.

And then 3:00 in the morning,
you're going home,

and he's still that person.

(GIBBERING)

BUTLER: We would just book
a hotel in London,

and he'd pull all the Swedish
models out of Tramps for four nights

and, excuse my French,
shag ourselves to death.

I used to drive him home,
and he was like that in the car.

And I'd just get him
outside by the gates,

"Oh, dear boy,
what a brilliant four days.

"Let's do that again
next week."

And, "Yeah, okay."

STAMP: Dougal,
he was always there for Keith.

You know, he was a good roadie.
He was a good driver.

He was a good...
He was a good corner man.

NARRATOR: Moon's previous corner
man was killed on the job.

In 1970, his childhood friend,
Neil Boland,

was accidentally
run over by Keith

during an alcohol-fueled
scuffle outside a nightclub.

Nobody's really clear
on what happened that night,

but Keith's journey of
experience with alcohol and drugs

basically gathered speed.

NARRATOR: In 1974,
Moon moved to Malibu,

home of the Southern California
surfer music he loved so much.

(SINGING)
Here by the sea and sand

Nothing ever goes as planned

I just couldn't face
going home

It was just a drag on my own

BUTLER: He wanted
to get into movies.

You know, people say,
"I make a great movie star."

At the end
it became too much.

I made a phone call
to Bill Curbishley,

and I said, "Look, I'm leaving
'cause I can't do it anymore."

But I did say to Bill,
"Get him home as soon as possible

"'cause the way he's carrying on,
he's not gonna be here much longer."

(SINGING) Nothing is planned
By the sea and the sand

NARRATOR: In 1975, Tommy
was immortalized on film.

But not by Kit Lambert.

Director Ken Russell wrote a
new script for the rock opera.

GALLAGHER: The film is appalling, right?
It's dreadful.

And everybody in it really should
question their fucking judgment,

particularly Eric Clapton.

Bit pants.
Little bit pants.

TOWNSHEND: I've always
been a fan of Ken's,

both as a person
and as a visionary,

and I love it.

I just love it.

NARRATOR: Tommy spent 14 weeks
atop the British box office,

and garnered three
Academy Award nominations.

As his most popular creation took
another lap around the world,

Pete went to work
on a new album.

TOWNSHEND: I would think,
"I can't go through that again."

"I just can't
go through it again.

"I can't come up
with some great idea

"and push it through. I don't have
the arrogance, I don't have the...

"I don't have the balls
to do it again."

(SINGING) It's clear to all my
friends that I habitually lie

I just bring them down

TOWNSHEND: Where we saw
our future was in movies.

We'd already done Tommy,

we'd managed to get a foothold
in Shepperton Studios,

we thought that we were
gonna be about movies.

NARRATOR: Manager Bill
Curbishley would strike a deal

to produce the film
of Quadrophenia.

As they pursued
the new popular art form,

a new generation
began taking over music.

GOLDSMITH: Punk, I hated it.

And I couldn't see the point
of spitting and all that crap.

It was the revolution
of the uglies.

NARRATOR:
And the uglies loved The Who.

(SINGING) You think that we
look pretty good together

You know, they come under
that category a little bit

as big stars
that weren't approachable.

(SINGING) A substitute
for another guy

TOWNSHEND: We were frightened.
It was like the French Revolution.

It could have ended up with, you know,
The Beatles, the Stones and The Who

being beheaded in public.

(SINGING) I was born with
a plastic spoon in my mouth

Me and Cookie
went down to Speakeasy,

which was an after-hours
place in London.

And Townshend was in there,
already drunk.

TOWNSHEND: Went screaming
after Jones and Cook

and kind of going, you know, "If you
wanna take over, fucking take over.

"Just fucking
get on with it!"

You know,
"Good fucking luck!"

STEVE JONES: I think we might've been
all a bit tipsy, but he was hammered.

And he was going up to people saying,
"Who are you? Who are you?"

To everyone.

NARRATOR: In 1977,
Keith returned to England.

Pete had been
writing new material.

(SINGING)
Who are you?

Who, who?
Who, who?

Who are you?

Who the fuck are you?

NARRATOR: That December,
they filmed a performance

for the band's
latest project,

a documentary film.

(SINGING) Who are you?

Tell me who are you?
Who are you?

NARRATOR: It was their first time
back onstage in more than a year.

(SINGING)
Oh, tell me who are you?

Who are you?

I woke up in a Soho doorway
A policeman knew my name

He goes, "You can
go home tonight

"If you can get up
and walk away"

I staggered back
to the Underground

And the breeze blew back
my hair

I remember throwing
punches around

And preaching from my chair

Who are you?

TOWNSHEND: Unfortunately,
the band didn't play as well,

but we all, I think all of us,
had such a good time together.

But we were all wrecks by then,
you know, so it's kind of like...

(SINGING) Who are you?

Who, who?
Who, who?

I really want to know

Who are you?

Who, who?
Who, who?

Oh, who the fuck are you?

NARRATOR:
In the spring of 1978,

they went back into the studio
for the first time in three years.

That summer, Moon began taking
prescription medicine
to try to curb his drinking.

TOWNSHEND: Keith
did that thing...

I said, "Now come on, come on.
Give it a real go."

And he'd start to try and play and,
"I can't, I can't."

I'd say, "Come on,
try again," and he'd...

(IMITATES MOON SIGHING)

And in the end he threw down his sticks,
and he went,

"I'm still...

"Having a bad day,

"but I'm still
the best fucking

"Keith Moon type

"drummer in the world!"

(SINGING) Who are you?

Who, who?
Who, who?

I really want to know

NARRATOR: Who Are You was
released August 18, 1978.

(SINGING)
I really want to know

Who are you?

Who?

I really want to know

I really want to know

Come on, tell me
Who are you, you, you?

Who are you?

NEWSCASTER: He was found unconscious
in a London flat this morning.

NEWSCASTER 2: A doctor was called,
who pronounced Moon dead.

NEWSCASTER 3: He was found dead by
his girlfriend early today. He was 32.

It was a silly mistake that made
him take a handful of Heminevrin

and it disables the esophagus and,
you know, he couldn't throw up, and...

He just always took pills in handfuls.
It was just a habit that he had.

CURBISHLEY: He was never
gonna grow old gracefully.

I don't think he was
destined to make old bones.

I suppose he was designed in such
a way to be remembered as he was.

It is the end of an era.

We're gonna try and go on,

but the one thing
that everyone must understand,

it will never, ever
be the same. That died.

But it was very strange 'cause
there's something underneath

determined not to let the one
thing that we'd all created,

including Keith,

die.

The music, not to let it die.

(SINGING) Long live rock!

I need it every night

Long live rock!

Come on and join the line

Long live rock!

Be it dead or alive

NARRATOR: Less than eight
months after Moonie's death,

The Who returned to the stage with
keyboard player Rabbit Bundrick

and drummer Kenney Jones.

Kenney Jones was a good mate
from The Small Faces.

And we'd always admired him as a
drummer, and we liked him as a guy.

Anything can change, especially,
you know, with Pete.

So, you just go with it and you
got to know when to go with it.

STAMP: I went to see The Who for
the first time without Keith.

And I'm standing
at the side of the stage

and Pete goes off onto some
sort of freestyle sort of riff,

you know, on his guitar.

And he turns to Keith.

Because he's gone
as far as he can go.

So he turns to Keith
to take over.

TOWNSHEND: Those moments,
like on the stage when I...

I'm taken aback,

because I look
and expect him to be there.

This is because
it is like a marriage.

(SINGING) Long live rock!

Come on and join the line

A real sense of connection

and of life wanting to
kind of go on like a wheel,

and thinking, "Well,
everything that goes comes back again."

And the thing is is that with people,
it doesn't work like that.

They don't come back again.

Let's have the
biggest hand of the night

for Mr. Kenney Jones,
our new drummer.

Hey!

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)

Didn't know what I was
letting myself in for, really,

to be honest.
But there you go.

What happened to me was I started
to drift into substances, you know.

Pete's addiction in 1979
was perhaps a reflection of,
I think, the guilt that both,

I'm sure Pete felt,
and I, 'cause I know I did.

That we I hadn't done enough
to save Keith.

You know, even I started to do
things I'd never done before.

You know,
I felt very miserable for a long time.

JONES: Roger obviously
was missing Moonie.

Not just onstage,
but in many other ways.

And I think it really
got to him a bit.

I didn't bank on the
emotional elements, you know.

NARRATOR:
During Kenney's first tour,

The Who played through the deadliest
rock concert in US history.

Cincinnati was an emotionally
devastating situation.

The band were like 20 minutes
into their show.

The co-promoter
came to me and he said,

"We got a problem
up on the plaza level."

What happened is there was
only one door to get through,
and a staircase to go down.

So they all rushed.

CURBISHLEY: And
those kids that fell

got trampled on.

The band were unaware of what was
happening until they finished the show.

We had to go back to America
a couple of months later
and be grilled by the lawyers.

"Do you feel responsible for
the people that died?" You know.

It still haunts me
to this day.

I can't tell you how I felt
about the parents of those kids.

Their kids have gone off to a concert,
and they don't come home.

We all bear scars.

But you don't live

without having that map of
life somewhere on your face.

(PLAYING EMINENCE FRONT)

NARRATOR: They released
two albums in two years,

Face Dances in '81
and It's Hard in '82,

only to be savaged
by some fans and critics.

TOWNSHEND: When you read the
newspapers and the reviews, it's like,

"This album is the worst thing
that's ever happened in
the history of rock and roll."

You know, "Townsend has gone mad
and is masturbating in public."

You know. "They may as
well crawl away and die."

(SINGING) Sun shines

People forget

The spray flies
as the speedboat glides

People forget

NARRATOR: The man who encouraged
Pete to write works of art

died of a brain hemorrhage
in 1981.

Kit Lambert was 45.

I didn't have an answer.

I couldn't work out what to do
that would return the band
to its halcyon years.

(SINGING)
...as the skier tracks

People forget

They forget they're hiding

It's an eminence front

DALTREY: What makes The Who special
is that it's not even what's written.

It's the bits that you don't
know are going to happen.
And they come of thin air.

Some nights it makes it,
some nights it doesn't.

But the nights
that it makes it,

they were...
That was the trouble with Kenney.

Those nights became
fewer and fewer.

CURBISHLEY: It was Roger who
pushed to get him of the band.

He didn't think he was right
for The Who.

There is no right drummer
for The Who.

There will be never be
the right drummer for The Who.

It will only be Keith.

But there you go.

(SINGING) Eminence front

Yeah! Just an eminence front

It's a put-on

NARRATOR: In 1983,
Pete officially dissolved the band,

just months before Tommy was reissued
on a new format, the compact disc.

(SINGING)
Bullshit! Bullshit

Yeah, yeah, yeah

We've just reached
the end, you know?

That's the way I feel about it.
I don't know why.

Bye-bye!

I can't wait to get out.

(SINGING) Got to dress to kill

Dress yourself to kill

DALTREY: You've been
traveling on this thing

that's going
a million miles an hour,

and all of a sudden it comes
to a complete, dead stop.

And it's incredibly
difficult to adjust,

because we haven't
lived normal lives.

It's as though
the world stops.

TOWNSHEND: At the time I was
fairly convinced that I would
do better as a solo artist.

I did a few songs.
It was a pragmatic decision.

Whether it was the right or the wrong
decision, I had to do something.

I think if we'd have continued to work,
I think I would've been a casualty.

I blamed rock and roll.

And of course, after three or four years
being out of front-line rock and roll,

I realized I was just as sick,
just as mad

and, you know, just as overworked.
You know, so...

It was me
that was the problem.

NARRATOR: The Who returned to
the stage on only two occasions

over the next 13 years:

A 20-minute set at Live Aid,

and an all-star tour for
the twentieth anniversary of Tommy.

That's the weird thing, it's like
soldiers that used to go out to war

and come back and just couldn't identify
with, like, normal life anymore.

When you come home, it's like, I can't
take this, like, normal existence.

BOB PRIDDEN:
John lived for gigging.

He went out with
his solo bands, and...

And it cost him!

He financed it. He didn't make
any money. Just to be out there.

John was deeply in debt. I don't
think it's any secret that he was.

Those years when
The Who weren't working,

he continued to spend
and live the lifestyle.

And I went to Pete and said, you know,
"This is the only way he's gonna

"ever get a chance
to dig himself out of the hole

"is to get... If you would
get The Who back together."

(SINGING) Why should I care?

Why should I care?

I would never hesitate
to consider, at least,

you know, that it might be something
to do, because I would just think,

"Well, without him,
I wouldn't even be here."

NARRATOR: Pete agreed
to tour Quadrophenia in 1996.

The band brought in Ringo Starr's son,
Zak Starkey, on drums.

As soon as we played those songs,
Moonie was alive again.

(SINGING) Girls of 15

Sexually knowing

The ushers are sniffing

Eau-de-cologning

At the end, John was handed checks of
well over two, three million dollars

and they were gone overnight.

NARRATOR: With John
in financial trouble,

they agreed to yet another reunion
in 1999 with just their basic lineup.

(SINGING)
I've got a feeling inside

Can't explain

It's a certain kind

Can't explain

TOWNSHEND: John never seemed
to go into depression.

As long as there was a nice big
wardrobe with 15 pairs of shoes in it

and the obligatory serially monogamous
girlfriend along, he was happy.

NARRATOR: Under the continued
leadership of manager Bill Curbishley,

the band agreed
to a series of live shows.

(SINGING) I can't explain

I think it's love

Try to say it to you

When I feel blue

But I can't explain

Something happened then.
Pete became inspired again.

It was like the wheel
was back on the barrow.

TOWNSHEND: We were just
celebrating the old music.

I'd felt like we should
just accept that, you know,
that we had these great songs

and that, personally, I was never
gonna be able to surpass them.

(SINGING)
I said, I can't explain

DALTREY:
Thank you very much.

We are honored
to be here.

VEDDER: Music is an art form.

That art form includes rhythm,
meaning and communication.

I've met people from different walks
of life, and they've all been touched

in such a unique
and pure way.

They really feel
this deep connection.

So now you've got, for me,
the greatest art form that ever existed.

(PLAYING
WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN)

(SINGING) We'll be fighting
in the streets

With our children
at our feet

And the morals that they
worship will be gone

And the men
who spurred us on

CURBISHLEY: When we got that call
about the concert for New York,

America meant so much
to The Who, we had to go.

(SINGING) I'll tip my hat
to the new constitution

Take a bow
for the new revolution

Smile and grin
at the change all around

Pick up my guitar
and I'll play

CURBISHLEY: I was standing
just off the stage...

I mean, you know, for me, over all
those years of watching The Who,

man, I've never seen
anything like that.

(SINGING)
We don't get fooled again

No, no!

EDGE:
I was sitting with Bono.

We just...
The two of us could not believe it.

Just the way they just
owned that event, you know?

Over the TV.

(SINGING) There's nothing
in the streets

Looks any different to me

And the slogans are replaced
by the by

Just so much more powerful
live than anyone else that
was on the bill that night.

That show in New York, that could
be one of the best illustrations

of the power of music.

Yeah!

(SINGING)
Don't you get fooled

Don't you get fooled again

Never!
No, no, no, no!

The sentiments to those songs,
if I could explain it to you,

right, it would be too easy
to explain it to you.

It's magic how those songs came
from Shepherd's Bush, you know,

and mean as much to people
40 years later than they did
when they were written.

You know, that's phenomenal. And that
something you can't put into words.

It's just magic, man.

CURBISHLEY: They were back,
in a big, big way.

Back as a four-piece.
Back on the road.

It was like
a rebirth again.

We had to go back and play there.
We had a contract to play Las Vegas.

I flew out to Las Vegas. The next
morning, got a call from my tour manager

saying they couldn't
wake John up.

BUTLER: Let's put something into
a little bit of perspective.

John was one of the best
bass players in the world.

John died at the age
of nearly 60,

with a woman in bed,
after snorting cocaine.

Now, you think,
"Hold on, John.

"You should have done this
in the '70s. Not now."

The coroner's report of the situation
in Las Vegas is quite clear.

He shouldn't have been there.
He shouldn't have been doing
what he was doing,

and it was crazy.
It's kind of what he chose to do.

That's just how he was.

I did have a chuckle.
I mean, if he was gonna go,

he couldn't have gone
in a better way, really.

On tour,
doing all the things he...

And being around the things
that he loved best, you know.

I think all of us
want to die onstage.

I mean, none of us
wanna be just written off.

GALLAGHER: It gets more
difficult as you get older.

How do I say this?

Let's say
for argument's sake,

you're a 58-year-old guy who's been
in a band from the '60s, right?

It's fucking frowned upon
in this country.

It's like, "God,
you fucking idiot.

"What are you doing,
silly old man?"

We have this tendency to kind of
take the piss out of lads like that.

I don't know why
it is, you know?

We should keep going until it's over.
We shouldn't stop.

(SINGING)
They made my dream come true

They made my dream come true

Pete rang me back and said "I
want to continue with this tour."

If we'd have split up and gone
our own ways the next day,

I think we would have probably
found it very difficult

to get back together
on a stage.

NARRATOR: The Who
performed four days later

at the Hollywood Bowl
in Los Angeles.

Pino Palladino was the band's
first choice to fill in on bass.

Listen, we know this...

For some of the fans that have
followed us for many years,

this is gonna be
very difficult.

And we understand. We're not
pretending that nothing's happened,

as Roger said earlier on.
And it is difficult.

I can tell you
with my hand on my heart,

that when I did look over
there and he wasn't there,

I wanted to die.
I just wanted to die.

(SINGING)
This song is over

I'm left with only tears

I must remember

Even if it takes
a million years

CURBISHLEY: If Moon was predictable,
then John was unnecessary.

A great, great loss.
Great loss, John.

I miss him so much,
I can't tell you.

TOWNSHEND:
What's actually now happened,

a further gift that
John's death has given me,

is to enjoy an acutely emphatic
relationship with Roger.

You know, we experienced
John's death.

He saw me get arrested for, you know,
a child pornography allegation...

(SINGING) How dare you
wear a robe to preside?

How dare you
cover your head to hide

Your face from God?

He was vilified. He was dragged
across the fucking national papers

in a scurrilous way,
you know.

And after months
of investigation,

they established that there was
nothing that he could be charged with.

In the end, nobody, much,
is gonna listen to me.

But Roger Daltrey, his partner,
he went to bat for him

and he was under
a lot of pressure, Roger.

(SINGING) How dare you?
Do you think I'll quietly go?

You are much braver
than you know

For I can't die

Roger is the voice of The Who.
And when you're growing up,

you just think that
he wrote all those things

and he's singing them
from his heart, and...

And then you realize it was
coming from this guy, Pete.

That's when I started to realize there
was something deeper going on here.

They're two incredibly
strong forces

and they've relied
on each other for years.

Since John died,
we're probably musically more together.

I'm sure spiritually we are.

(SINGING)
Will you have some tea

At the theater with me?

We did it all

Didn't we?

Jumped every wall

TOWNSHEND: I think Roger is the best,
you know, interpreter of my work

that I could have
ever hoped for.

(SINGING)
Unraveled codes

Ingeniously

What's very interesting about
what Roger and I are left with

is that we have
a very pure relationship.

(SINGING) So seamlessly

We made it work

DALTREY: I recognize his
genius and I love him dearly.

He's like a brother.
You know, that's love.

Even though on the outside,
and when you read things
about what we did in the past

and how many fights
we used to have,

you think, "These guys
used to hate each other.

"Did we fuck?" You know?

Well, I didn't, anyway.
I loved him.

(SINGING)
A great dream derailed

TOWNSHEND:
He's my friend, I love him,

and I'm standing by him,
and he stands by me.

We can say what we like
about each other now.

You know, it's not easy
for either of us,

because we're
so unbelievably unalike.

But, you know,
we're kind of all we've got now.

(SINGING) One of us me

All of us sad

It is really not important
whether I am, at the time,

getting on with Pete
or he's getting on with me.

It doesn't matter. All that matters
is what we create on the stage.

That two hours
of music, that night,

and as long as that
is still moving people

and sending people out
with a buzz,

then we're succeeding.

(SINGING)
Will you have some tea

At the theater with me?

(CROWD CHEERING LOUDLY)

One, two,
one, two, three...

(PLAYING MY GENERATION)

(SINGING)
People try to put us down

Talking 'bout
my generation

Just because
we get around

Talking 'bout
my generation

Things they do
look awful cold

Talking 'bout
my generation

I hope I die
before I get old

Talking 'bout
my generation

This is my generation
This is my generation, baby

Why don't you all...

...fade away?

Talking 'bout
my generation

And don't try to dig
what we all say

Talking 'bout
my generation

I'm not trying
to cause a big sensation

Talking 'bout
my generation

I'm just talking
about my generation

Talking 'bout
my generation

Talking 'bout
my generation

Why don't you all
fade away?

Talking 'bout
my generation

And don't try to dig
what we all say

Talking 'bout
my generation

I'm not trying to cause
a plenty big sensation

Talking 'bout my...

Talking 'bout
my generation

Talk, talk about it

That really would suck

If you lose her

Keith Moon on the drums here.
In that corner, the Ox!

...for Mr. Kenney Jones!

Pino Palladino on bass!

Simon Townshend,
guitar and vocals.

Zak Starkey on the drums!

John "Rabbit" Bundrick
on keyboards.

But most of all, you!

(CROWD CHEERING)

TOWNSHEND: We will be back!

Corrected by mi0o