(threadshit) I’ve always detested the smashing of instruments in fake frenzies (threadshit over).
So I guess flying RC airplanes into the stage is out of the question?
From what I’ve read, the first time it happened was an accident - they were playing in a club with a lower ceiling than they were accustomed to and Townshend jammed the neck of his guitar through the ceiling, and the crowd went so wild that they started doing it on purpose afterward. They eventually stopped because it had gotten too expensive - on the BBC Sessions album, there’s an interview clip from 1966 or 1967 where Pete tells John Peel that by his estimation they’d destroyed about £6,000 worth of equipment, which in 2024 money comes out to about $120,000 US. (And it was considered a big deal at the time that all four members of the band each got an advance of £500 for the A Quick One LP.)
(Yes, I’ve been a Who superfan since I was 17, how could you tell?)
I cannot confirm, but I did once read (years ago, and I cannot remember where) that it got expensive in the early days, when the band was playing clubs. Townshend realized that a new guitar cost 15 pounds, when he was only getting paid 13 pounds a gig. But like I said, I cannot confirm. Fun story though.
(Aside: How do I create the sign for pounds sterling?)
Hold Alt and type 0163 if you’re on a PC. On the Android keyboard it’s on the second page of symbols, in place of the letter i.
Hm. Cannot seem to make it work, and I’m on a PC running Win10. But thanks anyway; I’ll look around.
(On a PC, I use the Character Map for non-keyboard symbols.)
“A guitar cost £15.”
Hey, that worked! Thanks, @kenobi_65 !
I should have mentioned that you have to use the numbers on the numpad, not the ones above the alphabet keys.
D’oh! Should have thought of that. I rarely use the numpad for numbers. Mostly, I use it for up/down/left/right, etc. Still, thanks—good to know another way other than the character map. Thanks again!
Okay, now back to The Who.
I’m reminded of the clip from The Kids Are Alright where John takes the director on a tour of his mansion in the English countryside and there’s a wall just lined end to end with bass guitars - the implication being that, since John didn’t smash his instruments, he got to save his money and buy a grand old manor house.
I never got to see Entwistle live - the first time I got to see the Who was their Hollywood Bowl show in 2002, which wound up being the very first show they did after his death, with Pino Palladino having joined the band on about two days notice. The show was sort of an impromptu wake with 20,000 people in attendance and is still one of the coolest concerts I’ve ever been to.
(Side note: My girlfriend and I were way up in the nosebleeds and this was still before the days of jumbotrons being standard at big concerts, so we brought binoculars and were people-watching the front rows before the show looking for celebrities. We spotted Eddie Vedder and Ray Manzarek.)
I did. Toronto, 1982.
That concert was a mess. I’m glad I got to see The Who, but not what I had to go through to do so.
Exhibition Stadium. Otherwise known as “The Mistake by the Lake.” Not suited for anything other than CFL football, and they had to reconfigure the stadium for the Blue Jays. But they did the best with what they had. The Who’s stage was at the west end of the stadium.
In spite of Cincinnati, we had General Admission tickets, so we got there early. As I recall, about 10:30 AM for a 3:30 PM show. So we were fairly close to the front. Great, until we needed the bathroom.
No Porta-Potties on the grounds, so you had to go into the stadium buildings. And it was easy enough to go back, the aisles were empty. But coming forward to your place? No way. You could not use the aisles, according to “security,” you had to step your way carefully through the crowd. It was 32 years ago, but I’d still like to have a word with whoever in “security” instituted that rule.
Then, there was some kind of something. Maybe a guitar chord. That caused the crowd to surge forward, and even if you weren’t standing, you got swept forward anyway. The people at the front were getting crushed against the barriers, so they turned on the fire hoses. First time I was ever blasted by a fire hose, by the way.
Then Joe Jackson, the opening band, came out. Whoever selected him, needed their head read. He wasn’t a The Who crowd. His set was cut short when his guitarist was hit by a thrown liquor bottle, and he and his band said, “The hell with this, we’re leaving.”
More waiting, more crowd surging, more firehoses. Jeez, I started to wonder, why did I bother? I’m standing seven hours, can’t go to the bathroom without having to go through crowds because “security,” and I’m soaked thanks to the firehoses, and …
Then The Who came on, and suddenly, it was all worthwhile.
Fun souvenir: I nabbed a cigarette advertisement from the subway on the way home. Hey, it was for my brand at the time.
Well, if you are getting regularly rinsed by the hoses, you coulda just pissed your pants, no? Or, if it was that crowded, just whipped it out and pissed on the ground (or your neighbor’s shoes!) 
You sure bring back some experiences that woulda been scary to me today. Like Nugent at Soldier Field. Or standing outside closed doors awaiting a UFO concert when the crowd began surging forward…
Same tour, but Cedar Falls, Iowa, 42 years ago last week. I think the tix were $12. We got “obstructed view” seats in the stands, and when we got there, yes, they were obstructed. But part of the deal was you could have floor access without paying floor prices. So, since we were there early, we got like 20 feet from the stage.
Back then I could stand for 5 hours, and without having to pee. And I was too tall to crush, unless I got knocked down. (at Cheap Trick, a short girl in our group got lifted off her feet and carried away like a leaf on a lake. She ended up rescued by security and we didn’t see her again until the show was over.)
I can’t remember the opening act. My biggest complaint is that The Who didn’t really seem to care. It was just Iowa, after all. Only one encore.
The only half decent souvenir was a tour book that was really lame, and was like 7, 10 bucks , something like that (like $30 now?). My friend said “you should buy it. You’ll regret it later if you don’t”. So I bought it. 42 years later it still is lame, and I wish I hadn’t bought it! 
I see they go for like 20 on ebay. They lost value!
$10 in 1982 is/was worth around $33 today.
I was another Who-head in high school, known as “the” Who guy and fanatic, but I never saw Moon. I saw the Entwistle version multiple times, and then the Palladino tour. I’ve never seen the later-era Who, and to be honest don’t want to. I did have tickets to a Brooklyn Quadrophenia performance, but couldn’t make it, and my erstwhile high school friend/Who fan made it & she said it was awful.
It was grating upthread to see h’s included and omitted where inappropriate.
I typed in “the who” into Copilot and got:
the who
Copilot
The Who, huh? Iconic band! Rock legends like Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle, and Keith Moon really left their mark on music history with tracks like “My Generation” and “Baba O’Riley”. Their blend of hard rock and rebellious spirit defined an era. Do you have a favorite song or album?
Incredibly generic, but no harmonica. And the Kenny Jones erasure!
My first Who show was 1976 at a Day on The Green with The Grateful Dead. Being there for The Who, it was rough having to sit through the Dead but they were worth the wait. The highlight for me was Keith singing Johnny B. Goode as the encore.
According to rock historian Dave Marsh, as early as 1963 Paul Revere and the Raiders would buy a junk piano before a gig (because who cares how a piano sounds in a rock and roll band) and then demolish it on stage.
I saw The Who in Atlanta a couple of months after Who’s Next was released. A couple of memories:
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It was the loudest concert I ever attended. My head hurt and I attribute part of today’s hearing loss to it. Of course, they were known for that!
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I remember Pete Townshend - very irritated - pointing out that Keith Moon missed the place on Baba O’Riley where the transition from the pre-recorded intro to live play occurs. The album was still so new we didn’t notice.
What a great show that was!
There’s a lot to complain about in how the concert business has become corporatized, but at least concerts these days are a lot better organized than they were in the days you oldsters are talking about. I’ve never had to show up to a concert five hours early or had to worry about a stampede or had fire hoses turned on me. Perhaps that’s a fair trade for having to pay $20 for a hot dog and a bottle of water.