Word: townshends
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...found itself performing after a crowd stampede that killed eleven people. The tragedy took place outside Riverfront Coliseum as thousands of kids holding unreserved seats charged across a concrete plaza toward two unlocked entrances. The group had not yet come onstage. "If it had happened inside," said Townshend, "I would never have played again." The musicians could not be blamed and, indeed, did not learn what had happened until after the concert. They were shattered, and, for a time, considered that in some way they might be responsible. The Who knows as well as its fans that, since the group...
...long time, back in their early days, the four received a great deal of notoriety for smashing their instruments at the end of each performance. It was, at first, a flashy, frightening and finally exhilarating thing to see. Drummer Keith Moon blew up his drum kit, and Townshend rammed the neck of his guitar into his amp, while Daltrey slammed his microphone against the stage and Entwistle held tight to his bass, playing stubbornly on like a shipwreck's lone survivor trying to keep dry in a leaking lifeboat. There was too much discussion about how all this was rock...
...separate peaces. Only nightly shards of instruments lying on the floor of the stage like jigsaw fragments. "We're always trying to outdo each other onstage," Daltrey says. "All of us are a bit mad. We've stayed together for 15 years because we've never stopped fighting." Adds Townshend, "The Who's like an open book. It leads to a kind of unwitting honesty. That's what I think the fans really get fanatic about...
...armor piercing. "The Who sound came from us playing as a three-piece band and trying to sound like more," Entwistle told TIME's Janice Castro. "I play standard bass, but I combine it with long runs where I take over the lead while Pete bashes out chords." Townshends guitar style?a sort of flywheel progression from rhythmic chords to melody and back again, all performed with whirling arms, splits, slides and high jumps?attracted as much attention as his songs. An early Townshend tune like My Generation, with a chorus od stuttered definace...
...kept its distance, stayed strong by staying stubborn, contentious. Buoyed by the great breaking wave of British rock during the '60s, the group managed to swim clear. "We've sometimes been able to hide behind bands like the Beatles and the Stones, who got so much flak," Townshend says. "Yet we were significantly stronger than other contemporaries. Stronger in live performance, for example. And much more daring with material...