The Who's Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend last night (November 5) celebrated the release of their new feature-length documentary, Amazing Journey: The Story Of The Who, by participating in a Q&A session following the film’s premiere at London’s Kensington Odeon cinema. The capacity audienc...
The Who‘s Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend last night (November 5) celebrated the release of their new feature-length documentary, Amazing Journey: The Story Of The Who, by participating in a Q&A session following the film’s premiere at London’s Kensington Odeon cinema.
The capacity audience included members of Keith Moon and John Entwistle’s families as Daltrey and Townshend answered fan questions put to them by Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson.
Also taking part in the Q&A session that was webcast to 16 countries worldwide, were Amazing Journey’s director Paul Crowder and producer Nigel Sinclair, whose Spitfire Productions also worked on Martin Scorsese’s Bob Dylan doc, No Direction Home.
The questions gave Daltrey and Townshend the opportunity to reminisce about the glory days of The Who, and also to look forward. Townshend admitted “We don’t really have any plans for the future. We’re faced with a load of things we could do. We could play Vegas, do a rock’n’roll tour, or an Unplugged-type event.”
“It depends whether we feel we’ve got something to say,” added Daltrey.
The pair also spoke fondly about their former bandmate Keith Moon’s attempts to play “My Generation” with cricket bats instead of drumsticks during a gig at London’s Oval cricket ground in 1971, and the “long, fringe thing” Daltrey wore on stage at the Isle of Wight festival in 1970 that had been made by a friend of his. “He used to make leather sofas and decided to make me a suit,” said Daltrey. “It was like a giant chamois leather.”
The event itself was very relaxed, though Townshend conspicuously bristled when one question asked whether the band were planning to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Quadrophenia in 2009. “He means Tommy,” said Townshend. “But aren’t 40th anniversaries for people like TS Eliot? There were 20 years when The Who didn’t do anything, so anniversaries don’t work for us.”
Townshend later became very passionate when asked what he thought of the Led Zeppelin reunion. He admitted he felt confused by what he perceived as criticism directed against Robert Plant for “having the audacity” to reform Zep after making “a classy album with Alison Krauss.”
Read Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey talking about Amazing Journey, Tommy, Quadrophenia and more in an exclusive interview in this month’s edition of UNCUT, on sale now.
Amazing Journey: The Story Of The Who is available on DVD now from Universal Studios Home Entertainment