Music Blog 4

Today I have decided to talk about The Who since their songs have been stuck in my head all day! The band has been at the center of rock and roll since the mid 60's! The four piece band consisted of Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, John Entwistle, and Keith Moon. They started out playing in small bars and clubs, and gradually worked there way up to arenas and stadiums. Their hard rock and "punk" style made them early icons in the music industry. Selling multiple albums going platinum and many #1 hit singles brought the band up in a ton of success. These four men seemed unstoppable, and would pull in fans across the world to their concerts. One time unfortunately though, before a concert in Ohio, fans had been waiting impatiently to get in. The seats weren't reserved, so the first people in the stadium got the best seats. But when fans then heard the band playing and thought they were missing the concert, when they were just hearing the band's soundcheck. The huge crowd started running for the doors and caused people to get trampled over. Around eleven fans were killed and over twenty-six were injured. 

A few of the band members were very, very inventive with their in-concert moves! And when I say that, there were some very remarkable things these guys would do. Some of these things that became huge hits later on were Pete Townshend's running and jumping to a slide across the stage, all while making a huge circle with his arm as he played guitar. This move became very well known to what is used alot in playing air guitar! His other signature move that became very popular was playing a song on stage and then smashing his guitar. He would literally smash it to pieces on stage! This may seem crazy that someone else was more ecstatic, but the true wild man was Keith Moon. He would go up on stage and have his drums be filled with water and gold fish swimming around! A few times, he would also put explosives in his bass drum and one time it even injured a few of the band members went he put 10x the amount of gun powder in than normal. Link to see explosion and craziness! Keith loved explosives more than a normal person, many think he had a disorder. He would stuff hotel room's bathrooms with explosives and cherry bombs and the hole bathroom would explode, costing thousand and thousands of dollars in damage. On his birthday one year the band was at a hotel celebrating Keith's birthday and as soon as you know it, he was getting chased by cops and he jumped in someone's car and drove it straight into the hotel pool! He was the kind of jokester that would stir up fun but causing alot of damage as well. Unfortunately, Keith used drugs and drank regularly which lead to his death due to an overdose on September 6th, 1978.  He is one of the world's most recognized drummers of all time! The band will forever be remembered and go down in Rock & Roll history!

Photos from: http://www.google.com/imgres?q=keith+moon+drumming&um=1&hl=en&client=safari 
& http://austintownhall.com/2009/09/25/ft5-rock-moves/ & http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/the-who-challenge?before=1347917073