PEOPLE ARE ON THE PITCH, THEY THINK THE WHO ARE ALL OVER: Wembley Stadium – August 1979

[email protected] August 27, 2019

Having seen countless Who shows during the past forty five years, there is sometimes a sense my memories have merged into a recurring loop of lights, leaps, loudness and laconic quips.

There are singular instances of that unique brand of excitement only The Who can provide at instant recall – my first ever sight of the group when they took the stage at Bingley Hall, Stafford in October 1975 and The Valley (Charlton Athletic football ground) being bathed by a web of lasers in May 1976.

From more recently there are great moments from a Hyde Park show in 2006, followed two years later by an eye-popping display in the intimate surroundings of the Indigo at The O2, when an edgy atmosphere was assimilated into a magnificent performance.

Such is the frequency with which I saw them, particularly between 1979 and 1982, it would be hard for me to distinguish between a ‘Love Reign o’er Me‘ from Leicester or London. But what I can recall in the twirl of an arm or thump of an eardrum is feeling the sound of The Who – that transcendental cacophony which lifts devotees to such a rarefied state, the time of the last train or where the car is parked no longer becomes of concern.

When The Who played Wembley Stadium on Saturday 18 August 1979, they delivered a solid, if sometimes hesitant set, but one with enough highlights to dispel thoughts of how long it would take to be clear of north London that night – the task of joining the slow moving line of northbound traffic taking up more of the evening than The Who had done.

After a handful of largely under the radar warm-up shows, Wembley represented the first major UK appearance since the death of Keith Moon in September of the previous year – the ebullient drummer succumbing to the effects of his excessive lifestyle.

With his passing, guitarist and composer Pete Townshend, singer Roger Daltrey and bass player John Entwistle enlisted Kenny Jones, formerly of the Small Faces and Faces, to occupy the drum stool.

The four square Who line-up that had remained unchanged since 1964 was now consigned to history – the ‘new Who‘ augmented further by John ‘Rabbit’ Bundrick on keyboards and at some performances, such as Wembley, by a small horn section.

For my third Who show, but first without Moon, the under-card for a day entitled ‘The Who and Friends Roar In‘, comprised of former Neil Young sideman Nils Lofgren, Aussie hard rockers AC/DC and belligerent new wave outfit The Stranglers.

Last week, while aboard a crowded train, I read an account of events at Wembley from the perspective of an AC/DC follower who (seriously) put the power failure during their unremarkable set down to the plug being pulled by Who road crew members, worried that AC/DC were stealing the show.

Apologies to other passengers from the man doubled up with hysterical laughter. This bizarre claim has kept me amused for the past seven days, leading to thoughts of whether Who roadies had also considered loosening the springs on the trampoline Lofgren performed guitar-playing somersaults on during his time on stage or demanded The Stranglers put on a charmless performance – just so Townshend, Daltrey, Entwistle and Jones would not feel overawed when their time came to perform.

Drawing on a set list that would vary little over the next two to three years of live shows, at times even without Moon they sounded like The Who – even if it felt like meeting an old friend for the first time in three years who had undergone a perceptible change you did not want to comment upon.

The Who sounded tight, decreased in volume, slightly more restrained – yet with closed eyes, for a few seconds at a time, it was if nothing had changed.

But opening them brought back the harsh reality that Keith was gone, emphasised by the hole that now existed at the back of the stage.

Which is not meant to disparage Kenny Jones as a musician – in spite of criticism levelled in hindsight, he was the right drummer for The Who at the time. But simply put Moon was amazing to watch, a whirling, wayward dervish, who despite losing a semblance of power as years of indulgence took a toll, never lost his sense of showmanship.

Through Jones, Bundrick and where appropriate the horn players, The Who were moving to a more refined sound. Not overly apparent in the slam-bam opening salvo of ‘Substitute‘, ‘I Can’t Explain‘, ‘Baba O’ Riley‘, ‘The Punk and the Godfather‘, ‘Behind Blue Eyes‘ and ‘Boris the Spider,’ but the material then aired from the ‘Who Are You‘ album of twelve months before (released just prior to Moon dying) sounded enhanced by the adjustment.

There was still enough edge to songs such as ‘Sister Disco‘ and ‘Music Must Change‘ to nullify any thought The Who had evolved into a Dire Straits/Eagles type live act that reproduced their work on a no risk, note for note basis. If anything the two aforementioned ‘Who Are You‘ songs sounded superior to the studio versions and were better still in the more compact surroundings of Bingley Hall and Hammersmith Odeon before the year was out.

Indeed, the meandering, hit and hide nature of the ‘Who Are You‘ title track made it an immediate live favourite which they have rarely failed to play in concert since – with a decent fist also made of the Entwistle composed ‘Who Are You‘ album cut ‘Trick of the Light‘, which at Wembley was accompanied by an array of spectacular lighting effects.

Extending the stage line-up also allowed The Who to revisit songs that had been problematical to perform live when first presented.

The increase in musicians dispensed with the need for backing tapes that had been essential for them to perform material from the 1973 double album ‘Quadrophenia‘ – the band floundering through UK and US tours to promote a record depicting the rite of passage experience of a young, mid-60s Mod.

Using the tapes to recreate layers of keyboards and horns that populate many of the tracks on ‘Quadrophenia‘, they found them inhibiting (also prone to malfunction) and when The Who toured extensively through 1975 and 1976, ‘Quadrophenia‘ went night after night without representation – the show made up largely of early singles, several ‘Who’s Next‘ nuggets and half hour segment from the 1969 rock opera ‘Tommy‘.

But now with a renewed commitment to touring, ‘Tommy‘ was restricted to the one-two punch of ‘Pinball Wizard‘ and ‘See Me, Feel Me‘, both of which were greeted rapturously at Wembley, although they played a strong ‘Quadrophenia‘ hand, as spread throughout the set were ‘The Punk and the Godfather‘, ‘Drowned‘, ‘5.15‘ and ‘The Real Me‘ – the latter closing proceedings as the second encore, after they had initially finished in traditional fashion with ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again.’

With a Mod revival already underway in the UK, The Who played to more parkas at Wembley than they had ever done in their own 1964-65 Mod phase, renewed fascination in the movement given further fillip a couple of months later with release of the film version of ‘Quadrophenia‘. The redrawn set list for Who shows added to welcome reawakening of interest in a magnificent album that had spent far too long in the shadows.

‘Quadrophenia‘ was the second Who-related film of 1979, as a few weeks before Wembley, the career spanning documentary ‘The Kids Are Alright‘ reached cinema screens. Including footage of what proved Moon’s last live performance and a clip of ‘Who Are You‘ being recorded, this jumbled, joyous romp became an epitaph to Moon and as such brought a full stop to the first fourteen years of their career.

With two films and a sell-out stadium show adding to their cache, all it now required to cement a successful return was a new Who record, yet despite this momentum an album proved to be eighteen months away.

During this period they undertook two extensive US tours, while beyond group work Daltrey took the lead role in ‘McVicar‘, a film depicting the life of bank robber John McVicar – with Townshend recording the excellent solo album ‘Empty Glass‘ (an effort far superior to the March 1981 Who release ‘Face Dances‘). However, all Who and extracurricular projects were overshadowed by the deaths of eleven fans caught in a crush prior to a December 1979 show in Cincinnati.

In the forty years that have since elapsed, my perceptions of the Wembley gig do not appear to have altered a great deal. The sound problems referred to in some accounts I do not recall, my immediate reaction being a reduction in volume rather than issues with clarity.

Even accounting for a slight drop in dynamism The Who were renowned for, they remained the best experience in live rock, the group who set the bar for what a concert performance could be. They were not best served by the cavernous, unforgiving venue (the Rolling Stones also struggled to impose themselves on Wembley in a 1982 summer show) yet in accepting this was not The Who we craved but the one we had, it was still enough to stir the heart, even if the mind had a reservation or two.

Maybe down to a lack of connection in being someway from the stage (there were no video screens in operation) or partly due to realisation things had clearly changed, of Who shows to have seared deep into this aging soul, Wembley would not feature among them.

That said, on the night of Saturday 18 August 1979 there is no other place on the planet I would have wished to be.

THE WHO – Wembley Stadium 18/8/1979:

Substitute/I Can’t Explain/Baba O’Riley/The Punk And The Godfather/Behind Blue Eyes/Boris The Spider/Sister Disco/Drowned/Music Must Change/Magic Bus/Pinball Wizard/See Me Feel Me/Trick Of The Light/5.15/Long Live Rock/Who Are You/My Generation/Dreaming From The Waist/Won’t Get Fooled Again/Encores: Summertime Blues/The Real Me;

This article was first published on August 27 2019.

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NEIL SAMBROOK is also the author of MONTY’S DOUBLE – an acclaimed thriller now available in paperback and as an Amazon Kindle book.

AUTHORS NOTE: The Wembley concert photographs accompanying this article were taken from the excellent UK Rock Festivals website: (www.ukrockfestivals.com) from whom permission to use them was sought.