Music
The Who claim someone sabotaged their Glastonbury set
by Dan MacRae
July 13, 2015
Pete Townshend thinks it was "one of the very worst the band had ever played."
“My Generation” currently clocks in at a half-century, but it looks like people continue to try to put The Who d-down.
Pete Townshend and Roger Daltery weren’t particularly fond of their Glastonbury experience this summer and have alleged that they were the victims of sabatoge. The claim pops up courtesy of a blog post on the rock outfit’s website. Oh, also they were mainly on the bill because Prince decided to pass on playing the English festival. Take it away, The Who.
“After crowd-pleasing sets by Lionel Richie and Paul Weller, it was time for The Who to close out the festival weekend, starting again just as the sun was setting. (Not many know that we were a last-months addition to the show, replacing Prince who decided not to come this year.)” wrote the band. “As we began to prepare our coming changeover, we found someone had sabotaged the carefully-tested audio connections for much of our gear. We’ve never seen that before, but we’re good at plugging things in, so all damage was repaired in time. Was it Mr. Weller or Lionel, no way. Dalai Lama – hmmm…. he did steal the show already.”
We like to imagine the Chemical Brothers were skulking about wearing bandit masks at the time of the incident, but there’s no evidence to back up this fantasy.
Despite things starting out relatively alright, The Who said their Pyramid Stage set wasn’t exactly on point.
“The band were playing MORE than a little loose, rather sloppy in fact,” reads the post. “Pete was growing angry right away, yelling at one point that the band ought to play “like we’re in the same f*ing band” and telling brother Simon to pay close attention to their sync together. Soon after, Pete’d decided the clear sound screens in front of Zak’s drums were in the way, and violently pulled them over onto his amps. It helped, though, and he was more happy for a bit. The audience loved the raw violence of it, a rare display of anger you’d not see at other’s shows. One more reason to see The Who.”
According to the post, Pete felt the show was “one of the very worst the band had ever played” although the group’s blog post czar disagreed and noted that the light and sound experts thought things went well.
You can marinate in a bit of The Who’s Glastonbury performance below and spring to your own conclusions.
Tags: Music, News, Glastonbury, The Who
