I had one groupie experience. And I would give myself a C were I to grade it. But at least I had a groupie experience! My Almost Famous moment, if you’ve seen the movie.
Pete Townshend in Hamburg, 1972
In high school, I fell in love with The Who, specifically with Pete Townshend. It was a latent love, of course, since The Who had been around since the 1960s. But twenty years later, they could still rock, and I was in love with them and their music in the 80s and the younger versions of them in photographs.
The friend Erik who introduced me to the band was a real fan. We’d hop into his boat-of-car, a 1960s Buick Skylark with the personalized license plate: WhoFan2 (number one was already taken), and with Baba O’Riley blasting on the stereo, headed away from our boring suburban town to Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley on a Friday afternoon with a small bunch of misfit friends. We ate a slice of pizza at Blondie’s and then shopped at Aardvark’s Used and Vintage Store, where we bought mod trench coats and two-dollar treasures.
The windmill!
We thumbed through albums at Rasputin’s Records and then headed up into the Berkeley Hills, parked on the side of a street with a view of the San Francisco Bay, cranked up My Generation, played hacky sack and did split kicks and Townsend windmills on air guitars off the car’s hood.
By the end of my senior year, I had most of The Who’s albums, including Live at Leeds and Who By Numbers and had listened to Quadrophenia and Tommy all the way through more than once. I had a history of The Who book and a rock and roll history book that I bought at Tower Records. From those books, I drew many pictures of Pete Townshend until I had his face and sizable nose memorized and could doodle his likeness on the edges of notepaper at school.
I learned to play Pinball Wizard and Behind Blue Eyes on my guitar and my favorite, the more obscure Blue, Red and Gray.
I finally had tickets to see The Who that spring at the Cow Palace. I would see them live! Well, not Keith Moon, of course, sadly, with his wild stick-flying style and mischievous smile.
Then my parents decided to take a trip to New England and Washington DC and invited me. That was another love affair for this California kid, ever since fourth grade when we were assigned to do reports on a different state, and I got Connecticut. I learned I could write a letter to state tourist boards and receive all kinds of mail. That was great!
I gave up my ticket to go traveling. Other than being annoyed with my mother the entire trip (mother-teenage daughter thing—with the complexities of our own personal dynamics), it was a great trip, picking berries at a farm near Walden, smelling the sea air and seeing fishing cottages in Groton Long Point, eating lobster in Boston, walking through a skinny tree forest in Eastern hills, going to Ford’s Theatre and touring the Smithsonian and FBI headquarters.
But it left me wanting for my Who.
Fast-forward to college. I was out-of-place and lonely at UC Davis my freshman year, just trying to find my way, a liberal arts gal amongst the Aggie Econ majors. I found a few things I liked though, writing features for The Aggie newspaper, for one, and taking in some of the great concerts on campus. Then I heard a Townshend would be playing in the Coffee House. It wasn’t Pete. It was his youngest brother Simon. But it was still a Townshend. I went by myself.
In that intimate venue, I somehow found four or five other young women who were all there for the same reason as me: Pete Townshend fans there to see the near-thing. Simon—only five years older than me—had just released his first solo. It was okay. And he was cute, but it was his older brother Paul—the tour manager—that had us all ogling. He looked so much like big brother Pete.
The crowd at the show was not that big and afterwards, we got talking with Simon, Paul and their other manager, a slimy old geezer who used to be a touring manager for The Who, at least that’s what he said. They gave us the address of the after-party they were attending in town. Off we all went. We hung out with the Townshend brothers and the rest of the band late into the night, and they invited us to their gig the next night at Wolfgang’s in San Francisco. Despite the old geezer coming on to me, I was too curious not to go.
The next evening, we hung out in the dressing room and backstage and watched the show. Wolfgang’s was a great old venue! When the show was over, their tour bus pulled up and we got on with them to check it out.
But it was time for them to go. They had a long drive to their show the next day. So, we said good-bye and headed back to Davis.
That’s why I give myself a C grade. I was a groupie for about 24 hours—with the brother of my teenage idol!
There is an addendum. My junior year, I studied abroad, choosing the University of London, Hampstead campus on Finchley Road. It was a life-changing year. I told everyone I chose London for the theatre, and that was one of the reasons. I saw shows nearly every week, on the West End and on the second floor of shabby pubs. I performed at the Edinburgh Festival. It was awesome!
But honestly, I also chose London because of my infatuation with The Who.
While there, I had one more opportunity to be a Townshend groupie, this time with Pete! I attended the Deep End Live! concert with David Gilmour of Pink Floyd and Pete playing together at the Brixton Academy, a part of London I hadn’t ventured into previously. I went with a couple other exchange students, who were all pretty big Townshend fans.
While waiting to get in, I was talking to a security guard. For some reason, we hit it off (but he didn’t seem to be trying to seduce me—I don’t know; I was awfully naïve) and he had just agreed to get me a backstage pass, when the other girls suddenly surrounded me all smiling and wide-eyed.
“I can’t give out that many. Sorry,” he said.
I was pissed. But the concert was still amazing.
It’s okay. I’d rather sing on stage than be a groupie anyway. Although, I have to admit, I still get easily star-struck! And I’d still love to meet Pete Townshend!
Pete Townshend 2012