"Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy", "The Who Sell Out", "Who's Next", "Live At Leeds" and through several other albums, the DJ didn't have to tell me who that was on the radio when a new single was released. It was evident in Townsend's opening chords and the first two syllables from Roger Daltry's mic that I was going to need $3 to buy a new Who album that day. (Can Miley Cirus do that?)
As time went on I had my bouts of disillusion with them like in any deep emotional relationship. I was incensed when Townsend began selling the band's hits off to mega corporations one by one. "They may be your teen anthems, but they're my fucking songs and I'll do as I bloody want with them" he said in a Rolling Stone interview. I took it personal and that seemingly selfish statement broke my heart back in the '80s or '90s.
When they played the Super Bowl, and after what I thought was a subdued and forgettable performance, Townsend walked off the stage like some bored studio guitarist, leaving me screaming "SMASH IT!! BREAK IT!!" at an array of LCD pixels. Townsend always said that he only trashes a guitar when the audience deserves it, and I assumed since it was the single biggest audience The Who ever played for on the most lavish stage ever, I did indeed deserve it. I figured if they'd left that stage in a smoking shambles with the last chords still reverberating from behind the lasers and strobes, it would have been the yardstick by which all future Super Bowl shows would be measured... at least by me.
I guess I still love The Who because they always take me back to that adolescent wild in the streets time in my life and bring out a certain childish behavior in me. I remain hopeful that I die before I get old, but like Townsend I'll decide what old is on that continually sliding scale.
Thanx for the flashback. Made my day.
On edit:
If you posted this to make a political statement, it was lost on me. I was too busy reliving an age of simple style when I could barely keep track of how may pills I took that day or where I'd get gas for my old car. Come to think of it, that was yesterday.
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