(Personal reflections inspired by Who songs)
Song: “See Me Feel Me/Listening
To You”
Album: Tommy
Release Date: May,
1969
This past
week was the 48th Anniversary of Woodstock; the three-day music festival
which was by most accounts a monumental watershed moment, as is evident in its
being included in virtually every 20th century American history
documentary known. Everyone has an opinion about Woodstock, with most views
slotted at the far left of the spectrum (the epitome of the ‘Age of Aquarius’)
or the far right end of the spectrum (a decrepit hippie drug fest). It could be argued that, given the Nixonian
reaction soon after to the entire hippie subculture (the Kent State killings
for example) and the escalating rift between left and right ever since, this
singular event may likely have been the catalyst for the intense political polarization
that exists to this day, both here in the USA and in other parts of the Western
World.
Contrary
to his inharmonious view of the multitude of Who shows that most others who
were there rave about, Pete Townshend has always been pleased with the band’s
performance at Woodstock, particularly his and Roger Daltrey’s contributions. But for many years, Townshend’s views of the
event in general had fallen more in the right-leaning camp (“I hated it” he once said about the
experience). By 1998 however, Pete Townshend
started sounding a bit more objective about Woodstock. That was the year he did a mini solo-tour (just
three shows in the States) with a number of musicians from his mid-80s “Deep
End” band (see Under the Big Top # 30), which centered on an appearance at “A
Day In the Garden: Woodstock” on August 15th at the original Max
Yasgur’s Farm locale, along with other musicians from the ’69 event including Melanie,
Richie Havens and Ten Years After.
One of the
three shows Townshend and his band performed was a warm-up gig the night before
the Woodstock anniversary show, which was at Boston’s Harborlights Pavilion
(the third show was a benefit for Maryville Academy at Chicago’s House of
Blues, which was filmed and put to record).
I was there in Boston, along with Nancy, Becca, Dave, Mac and Bouv. It was a rare treat for any Who fan to
witness a Pete Townshend solo show. The
band opened up with an original Woodstock classic, Canned Heat’s “On the Road
Again” (they would later in the set add that band’s other Woodstock hit, “Going
Up the Country”). It was strange hearing
Townshend sing in that offbeat high-tenor style of Canned Heat’s then lead
singer Alan Wilson (who died the year after the original Woodstock of ‘acute
barbiturate intoxication’ at the rock-cursed age of 27; two weeks before Jimi
Hendrix and four weeks before Janis Joplin).
But he pulled it off as the show captured a spirit from the past that
even those of us who were not there in ’69 could feel.
What also
worked were Pete Townshend’s in-between-song reflections of the event that
launched the Who into what remains a very small circle of superstar rock
immortals. His mixed feelings came
through loud and clear that evening, but at least they were mixed and not his utterly
negative reflections to that point. It
was clear Townshend had thought quite a bit about what the original event meant
to him leading up to that 29th Anniversary evening. His past thoughts that Woodstock was just a
teenage wasteland had now rounded out some (just listen to the Who song “Cry If
You Want” off 1982’s It’s Hard for a
taste of how he felt about the hippie movement in the decades following the 60s).
It’s taken
me some time to understand Pete Townshend’s original viewpoints, but now I
think I get it. Tommy was just released at the time and the Who performed much of
it that pre-dawn morning (most of their set was in the dark; onto the stage at
5 am and off not long after the sun rose on the 3rd day). Tommy
has plenty of spiritual undertones, and Townshend was then deeply into a
personal faith journey, in part due to his intense effort in putting the story
of the deaf dumb and blind boy to life. Pete Townshend made many observations prior to
the Who’s set that nite, walking among the crowd and the like to see if the
mood was appropriately similar to his, especially considering the peace-centric
promotion of the event. He was
disappointed for the most part, seeing that the crowd appeared to be agnostic
to what could have been a group spiritual quest: A sacrosanct Tommy-like moment lost.
And so at
the Boston Harborlights Pavilion time appeared to have softened this view, with
Townshend acknowledging who was he to judge the motivations of others who were
there. Perhaps many in that massive
crowd were on a quest with him after all.
Pete
Townshend has been quite outspoken over the years about the fact that much of
what the Who have done throughout their history is in action/reaction to their
audience, which would include at times mirroring what they observed in the
crowd. Many of their early stage moves
for example were simply aping their Mod-audience’s dances, which would evolve
nightly. A core part of the Quadrophenia concept album was based on the
personalities of the Who from the perspective of the stories central character,
Jimmy. And then there’s the title of the
album Who Are You, which has no
question mark (as originally noted by the great music writer/editor Matt
Resinicoff) suggesting, if you know the lyrics, a strong tie between the Who
and their fans (see Big Top # 10).
When Pete Townshend
wrote the Tommy song “See Me Feel Me/Listening To You” he had this band/fan relationship
in mind. He saw Woodstock as the
pen-ultimate moment to seize in this regard, and when all was said and done he was
disillusioned. But my goodness, did the
Who ever do their part. Each time I listen
to their performance at Woodstock, particularly “Sparks”, “Pinball Wizard”, and
“See Me Feel Me/Listening To You” I find it more awe-inspiring than the time
before. It’s one of those achievements
where I can’t help but think that God himself guided the band’s performance to
precisely the way it played out, if for no other reason than to reveal what
humans are capable of when they form a four-piece rock band.
I found a
mesmerizingly fantastic version of the Woodstock footage of “See Me Feel
Me/Listening To You” on YouTube, which includes the lead-in “We’re Not Gonna
Take It” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbaIB7rurys) (to jump right to “See
Me….”, scroll to the 3:26 mark). Here we
see Roger Daltrey majestic in all his golden-Greek-god glory. John Entwistle and Keith Moon did their
inimitable rolls on bass and drums, Enty chiming in backing-vocal high-notes in
earnest, spine-chilling fashion (very unusual to see the Ox appearing earnest,
but he does here). And Pete
Townshend? Well, he orchestrated the
entire thing; his guitar playing otherworldly.
His stage act jaw dropping. His
focus; laser-beam intense. Townshend’s guitar
work starting at the 6:50 mark of the attached is border-line scary: A
Godzilla-like sound (it also reminds me of the sound in Saving
Private Ryan when the German tanks roll into the destroyed French village
then occupied by the small group of American soldiers). If that did not wake up the remaining souls
in the crowd that morning nothing would.
The
Greatest Live Rock Band ever at their utmost best on the ultimate stage. Wow!
I played a
bunch of Woodstock footage for my daughter Charlotte on Sunday. Richie Havens intense improvised singing of “Freedom
(Motherless Child)” to launch the event; Santana’s “Soul Sacrifice” (including
the incredible Maichael Shrieve drum solo), the aforementioned Canned Heat
songs, Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit”; Joe Cocker interpreting
in bluesy fashion the Beatles “With a Little Help from My Friends”, Janis Joplin singing “Summertime”, Sly and
the Family Stone’s “I Want To Take You Higher”, Country Joe McDonald’s
“I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag” (anti-Vietnam War).
I could have gone on and on. The
totality of quality songs played that weekend is truly astounding. But of all these songs and acts, it’s the Who
that appear to have played their best at the perfect time. And I believe they gave Woodstock that bit of
hard-edge that it needed to fully legitimize it, separating it from your
standard folk festival.
Charlotte
asked me if I wished that I had been at Woodstock. Well, I was 6 years old, not quite ready for
Prime Time, but I know she means. I’ve
been to my share of festivals. I know
the aura they can give when done right: There
can be a certain type of community feeling that you simply do not get anywhere
else; particularly at the multi-day/night events when you get to hang around
fires, converse and sing late into the evening with people you have only just
then met. Woodstock was special because
it was the first and because it was the biggest (at least half a million people
if not double that) ,and because it drew together an amazing and eclectic group
of musicians together, like no other event has done since. So yes, I would have liked to have been
there, and so would millions of others. A
parade of Altamont’s and Watkins Glen’s and Isle of Wight’s would never be able
emulate what that first big festival event accomplished.
It would
have been all in vein however if I missed that 5 am Who set. I’d like to think that if I were there and in
the right place as Pete Townshend was roaming through the crowd earlier that
night that that I’d have given him a sense that at least some of us were there
to deliver the promise of what Woodstock was supposed to mean to all of
us. In terms of how the Who performed, I
don’t think it would have mattered much at the time: They were flawless. But who knows how things would have played
out if Townshend came away from Woodstock with a positive attitude. Maybe the Lifehouse
project would have come together. Maybe
the Who would have gone to India and then recorded their own version of “The White Album”. Or maybe the Who would have disbanded: Pete Townshend going on a spiritual retreat from
life in the public eye and then never returning.
As for the
me that never was, the me that Charlotte conjured inside myself
as wishing he was there? Well, hopefully I would have been ‘in the moment’ and
taken in that Who’s set with awe-inspiring abandon, realizing it was all a
two-way street as I absorbed the lyrics to “Listening to You” (below) and possibly
even realizing later that I may have had an affirmative effect on Pete
Townshend in that chance encounter in the fields.
Listening to you I get the music.
Gazing at you I get the heat.
Following you I climb the mountain.
I get excitement at your feet.
Right behind you I see the millions.
On you I see the glory.
From you I get opinions.
From you I get the story.
- Pete
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