The 'orrible 'Ooo !

I'm currently reading Mark Blake's brilliant 2014 book Pretend You're In A War: The Who and the Sixties. In fact I just started it just last night, but it's such a compelling read, I quickly polished off the first 100 pages before the lights-out, bringing the story up to 1963 (before Keith joins the band the following year and completes the puzzle). The Who had a certain undercurrent of aggression, even violence in their music, their huge egos and open hostility towards one another resulted in shows performed at ear-splitting volumes and more famously, there was ritualistic destruction of their stage equipment (and the occasional hotel suite). Blake writes vividly about the London performing scene, and it surprised me how violent the early years of the 60's were. The reports of Mods and Rockers warring en mass have long since been debunked, but both subcultures amped up by cheap speed brought trouble to Who shows. Roger Daltrey himself, to borrow a line, "knew a few performers in his time" (Townsend remembered one local hood who hid out at Daltrey's home as an "awful, awful man") and at one point in the book, Daltrey had to talk down an associate who turned up a show with a shotgun intent on shooting someone he had a beef with. The kids it seems were not always alright...

[Update] I'm further along the book today and when I last left it, Michelangelo Antonioni accompanied by Monica Vitti saw the group perform in London, where Antonioni was prepping Blow-Up. Antonioni was said to have been intimated by the group, their volume and that the band played on seemingly indifferent to a huge brawl that broke out amongst the crowd. Antonioni was looking for a hip group to appear in Blow-Up, and was persuaded to go with The Yardbirds instead, who went on to smash a guitar in the film Townsend style...