When I was growing up The Who was one of my favourite bands. I remembered queuing overnight to get a ticket for one of their concerts in Newcastle. I also must have played their records hundreds of times and knew every note and every lyric on all of their albums.
On hearing that we were going to be making a film on their Who’s Next album it was difficult for me to put the fan element to one side and approach the project purely as the ‘filmmaker.’ I had made a number of films on artists who music I had listened too as a kid, but The Who were a different ball game, I had posters of these guys on my bedroom wall. Pete Townshend was one of my favourite songwriters and Roger Daltrey was up there in my top five greatest rock and roll vocalists of all time.
Upon meeting Townshend I think he guessed that I was a fan and how much I loved spending time in his company. I was blown away by his generosity with regards to the time he gave us and the effort put into helping us make the film. When we showed him a rough cut of the film he didn’t ask to change a single frame. People say don’t meet your hero’s, but Townshend never let me down and the Who remain one of my favourite groups of all time.
This sequence from the film shows how Pete would record home demos of his songs and then bring them to record producer Glynn Johns, who would then record the songs with the band. This was during the time when the earliest version of the synthesizer would feature heavily in songs such as ‘Wont Get Fooled Again’. Another thing that was evident from this clip is that Townshend has not lost his enthusiasm for the songs.