Who I Am: A Memoir (17 page)

Tommy
, for all its spiritual roots, is full of violence. It begins with bombs dropping, a young RAF pilot lost in battle (possibly captured as a prisoner of war), a domestic murder, bullying, sexual abuse, extreme drug use by a back-street quack, the incompetent medical treatment of a disabled child, and finally rioting by an aggrieved populace that has been promised nirvana but delivered boring day-job medication instead. When performing
Tommy
I often seemed to lose consciousness at some level. I wasn’t high, at least not on drugs. I kept very focused. I was buzzed on my own endogenous chemicals – endorphins, dopamine, serotonin and epinephrine flooded through my body.

For New York we had three shows planned at Fillmore East. On the opening night I was more excited than usual, and we were bullish that we’d have a good show. In the middle of a storming set a man appeared centre stage, tore the mike from Roger’s hands and started speaking to the audience. He didn’t ask us to stop performing. In fact he didn’t address us at all. One minute we were at work, and the next minute he was there, speaking to the audience – my audience.

Roger tried to get his microphone back, but the man pushed him away. In the middle of a heavy guitar solo, I ran over to boot his arse with a flying double-kick but as I approached he turned to face me and my Doc Martens connected with his balls. He doubled up, and a couple of Bill Graham’s men ran on stage and walked him off. We continued to play. Only later did I discover I had kicked an off-duty officer in the Tactical Police Force, who was trying to clear the theatre calmly because a fire had broken out in the store next door.

I went to stay at my friends Steve and Nancy Baron’s apartment that night. While I was discussing plans for Steve to come to London to record with me at my home studio, Nancy came in and said that a warrant was out for my arrest, and for Roger’s too. I decided to wait until the morning to turn myself in.

At the police station I was put in a cage. The TPF were a special unit with a lot of pride; the Commander, a tall man in his fifties with a scar on his face, dropped in to make his presence felt. I was bailed and arraigned for court on 27 May, in ten days’ time. I regretted the incident, and was upset by the police and press reaction; it seemed I might be deported and refused a visa in the future.

When interviewed by the police officer I had hurt I apologised sincerely, but the affair had become a matter of pride by then, and he wouldn’t look me in the eye. In the street, under normal circumstances, if I had kicked a man with his training he would have dropped me in a heartbeat – or may even have shot me, and been quite within his rights to do so. What I couldn’t find a way to explain was that my adrenaline had been running so high on stage that I hardly remembered the incident, nor did I have any sense of the power of my kick.

I called Karen back in London and explained what had happened.

‘Pete, please be careful,’ she said. ‘I miss you.’

Hearing her voice, and the fear in it, I just wanted to give up the rock ’n’ roll life and go home.

We did two more shows at the Fillmore, and somehow I managed to do good work. Then it was my birthday, and I decided again, as I often did at stressful times, to throw fate to the wind and revert to my aggressive stage persona. I was 24. I was a man. I would survive.

Tommy
was released in the USA on 17 May and in the UK six days later. On 25 May The Who performed alongside Led Zeppelin for the first time. Three weeks later Roger and I went to a preliminary court appearance in New York, where our lawyer informed us that the issue was less politically charged now, and the charges would probably be dropped; still, we would have to return to New York for the court date itself. Relieved for the time being, we went on to play a series of shows that I still think of as the defining moments of our career. Our performances, always energetic and tiring, were now additionally taxed by the extra focus and concentration required to give
Tommy
its due on stage.

After our outdoor show with Led Zeppelin in Columbia we went on to the Kinetic Playground in Chicago. The Buddy Rich Orchestra supported us and Keith got to speak to his idol after the first show. Rich’s drum solo at these two shows made every drummer in rock look like a chimpanzee. Joe Cocker was also on the bill, and I had one of the best times of my life listening and playing with him.

In San Francisco The Who argued with Bill Graham about having to perform twice for our first show – with
Tommy
it wouldn’t work – but he was intractable. We made our first set very short as a challenge to his so-called ‘authority’, so he had a disgruntled audience on his side too.

Bill Graham was used to telling musicians what to do, what to play and for how long, and what to wear. In return he provided clean dressing rooms and great PA systems, and paid good money. Bill didn’t know what to make of The Who. He was a really tough guy, but for some reason he adored me, and let it slide when I challenged him. In the end he agreed to let us combine the proposed two-show evenings into single-show evenings. We performed
Tommy
on both nights and from that day forward hardly ever performed two shows a night again, under any circumstances.

Back in New York, our court appearance was harrowing. Charges were dropped against Roger, but I was charged with a misdemeanour, the most minor legal infraction in the USA, similar to a ‘caution’ in the UK, and paid a $75 penalty. Relieved in spite of secretly hoping I’d never get another US visa again so I could be with my growing family, I told friends that I never wanted to go back to the States.

Before flying home on 23 June, I sat down with Frank Barsalona, our agent in New York, in his apartment, along with John Morris, a promoter, who pitched me on what came to be known as Woodstock. It sounded monumental, courageous and exciting, but it was only a few months away – too soon for me. I refused. I was a new father, and Karen had just spent two months on her own with a new baby in a new house. I had terrified her with my arrest, and I needed to give her and the baby some support.

Frank got quite animated, telling me I’d be a fool to turn this down – it was going to be the rock event of the decade, if not the century. I said I wouldn’t consider performing under any circumstances; my mind was made up. I had faced down Bill Graham, so Frank didn’t intimidate me. Frank went to his front door and locked a security lock, then went to the window and threw his keys to the apartment down into the street. He told me that I couldn’t leave until I agreed to perform. I sat out this absurd situation for two or three hours while John Morris tried to mediate. After missing my flight to London, I finally pretended to agree just to escape.

But Frank had a contract for me to sign before I did so. I scribbled my signature, knowing I could only sign for myself, without binding The Who. But a few days later, unbeknownst to me, Chris Stamp signed the final contract for the rest of the band.

Once I got home Karen was extremely tired, unsurprisingly. I did my best to help out with Emma, but I didn’t feel like I made much of a difference, frankly. Delia DeLeon wanted me to meet her sister Aminta, a Stradivarius-owning cellist who had been in the first contingent of young Western women gathered around Meher Baba in the early Thirties. At Delia’s insistence Aminta hosted a small garden party for Baba lovers, and Karen and I went with Emma in a carry-cot. Walking into Aminta’s drawing room, I saw the magnificent Stradivarius. It seemed to be glowing. Then I did a double-take, like a cartoon character. There was another glow in the room. Next to the cello sat the girl from Australia for whom I’d written ‘Sensation’ (now incorporated into
Tommy
).

I introduced my wife and baby to her; she said nothing, but continued to glow. I felt that life was conspiring to teach me a lesson. Karen intercepting the letter from the girl from Australia had made me really face what I wanted from my life, and who I wanted to spend it with. I had no doubt the girl was uneasy in this moment, and I sympathised, but the heartless artist in me rejoiced that from our liaison I had produced a good song.

For me, getting a hit single after
Tommy
was something I thought might never happen again. But with ‘Something in the Air’, written by my friend and drummer/singer Speedy Keen, I had drawn on all my skills to hone a song that was as radio-friendly as possible. I produced it for Thunderclap Newman, a band formed behind Speedy, recorded the song at IBC studios after the
Tommy
sessions, and it went almost directly to No. 1 in the UK charts.

I went with Thunderclap Newman to the set of
Top of the Pops
to celebrate their first appearance on the show. I was backstage, feeling strange that I didn’t need to appear on TV to earn my pay but kind of liking the idea, when an old friend took me aside and told me of the rumour that Brian Jones had been found dead. The details surrounding his death would take time to emerge, and the truth would always be hard to establish. I just sat there in stunned silence. I couldn’t believe Brian was dead. I hadn’t seen him since the
Rock and Roll Circus
filming, when he had been so unwell and upset. I knew he’d recently left the Stones, which must have been terribly painful for the man who had been the band’s original leader.

Two days later, on 5 July 1969, The Who performed at the Royal Albert Hall at the first Pop Proms. We were on the bill with Chuck Berry. There had been some friction from Chuck about who should top the bill, so we agreed that he would close the 5.30 show, and we would do so at 8.30 p.m. I took my eight-year-old brother Simon, and left him in David Bowie’s care. Across the road, in Hyde Park, the Stones had played their first show without Brian Jones, with Mick Taylor on guitar. They played in the afternoon, so afterwards quite a few of their audience walked over to attend our late show as well, all slightly worse for wear.

As the rockers started to get unruly, throwing things on the stage, Roger picked up a coin and came over to me.

‘It’s been sharpened, Pete,’ he said. ‘It’s like a razor.’ We managed to complete our show, dodging flying pennies without any harm, but were banned by the Royal Albert Hall for a long time. They must have thought we’d somehow incited the rockers, even though the mayhem took place before we’d started wrecking our equipment.

After the show I retrieved Simon from Bowie’s care. They both said the same thing: ‘I am going to do this.’ David meant he would create conceptual albums based on imaginary characters. Simon meant he was going to be a rock musician. As I took Simon down a flight of stairs I came across the ‘Sensation’ girl from Australia, who had been looking for me. We had a short, embarrassing conversation on a landing as road crew bustled past. I asked her if she was OK.

‘I was looking forward to seeing you again,’ she said. ‘Then, at Aminta’s Stradivarius party, it was wife, baby.’

The wife and baby had stayed home today. Suddenly, I couldn’t wait to see them. The glowing girl from Australia was to be the last girl I slept with before my marriage, and I intended, sincerely, never to cheat on Karen again.

I had to break the news to Karen about The Who’s imminent return to the States. We agreed that we’d been spending too much time apart and would go together, taking Emma with us. We flew to New York and drove up to Woodstock.

The Who were to play on day two of the festival, the last show on Saturday night, following Sly and the Family Stone and Janis Joplin. Someone suggested that, because of problems on the local roads, we should leave early for our set. Karen and I made a quick decision that the baby needed peace and quiet, so I would go to the festival site alone. I slipped into my Doc Martens and my white boiler-suit, and we climbed into a limo. Our driver said the helicopters had stopped flying when the charter company realised they weren’t going to get paid. Wiggy’s ears pricked up. He was responsible for collecting our fee.

It took ninety minutes to drive two miles along a road so muddy that occasionally we needed to be pushed by passersby. The road was littered with abandoned motorcycles and cars, some still containing tents and other belongings. It looked like a wartime flight. John and Keith were behaving strangely in the car. We’d only been in the hotel for fifteen minutes and they’d managed to score dope.

The scene greeting us at the backstage area of the festival was horrific. The entire parking area was a slurry of thick, gelatinous mud. The backstage crew were covered in it, and their travels back and forth to the stage were traipsing mud everywhere. As I got out of the car I slipped and sank up to my knees.

There were no dressing rooms available so we went to a tent with a hot-water machine, tea-bags, instant coffee and a coffee dispenser. I helped myself, and within minutes realised the water had been spiked with acid. It was fairly dilute, but as the low-level trip kicked in about twenty minutes later I noticed a photo of Meher Baba posted high on a telegraph pole. It was a wonderful moment. The image was ubiquitous at the time: Meher Baba as a young man, handsome, long-haired, Christ-like. It felt like a sign to me that everything would be OK.

Then tragedy struck. As I gazed at the photo a young man, barefoot and shirtless, clearly out of his head, leaped up on the roof of an ambulance parked under a telegraph pole and gracefully shinned up some thirty feet. As he touched the photo he screamed and fell backwards, landing on top of the ambulance. The telegraph pole was in fact a power line. The paramedics ran out to attend to the unconscious man. When I went into the first-aid tent to investigate I thought I had walked onto the set of
M*A*S*H
. There were cots of patients everywhere, mainly young people on bad trips, some injured, but mostly kids suffering from bouts of terror.

Back outside the tent I saw the faces of John and Keith peeping out from the back window of a station wagon. They waved and grinned; later I learned that each of them had a girl’s mouth around his cock.