A Motorcyclist, A Cowboy, A Gymnast, and The Sky
A Quick One (While He's Away) - The Who (Blast from the Past Sunday)
Music was something I was educated about from an early age, and the sheer volume of vinyls and CDs in my family’s house will certainly support my claim. I grew up with all kinds of music blasting, and I became a student of classic rock, fascinated by the music of the 60s and 70s in particular. Like any student passionate about their subject, I decided to do a little bit of an independent study with the support of channel 1266 on our television. They would play concerts and documentaries all day, often of the bands that I admired most. It was there that I watched The Who’s The Kids are Alright for the first time, and while the whole film had me from the get-go, it was the performance of “A Quick One (While He’s Away)” that has always stuck with me.
The ability to keep someone’s attention for even a three minute song is a feat that can’t always be accomplished. That’s why I find it so impressive that The Who not only kept the crowd at The Rolling Stones’ Rock & Roll Circus entertained with a single song for a whopping seven and a half minutes, but seemed to grow their excitement throughout, ending with smiles all around. Speaking of smiles, one of my favorite parts of this performance is that I don’t think I see a single one of them crack a smile the whole time, except for Keith Moon, who of course provided most of the personality throughout. I feel like they were able to swing the “dead-behind-the-eyes” look because their instruments spoke for them. This is especially true of John Entwistle in the ending, where he unleashes a beautiful falsetto and continues shredding his bass without changing his face at all.
I love songs that have different phases throughout, so “A Quick One (While He’s Away)” was always destined to be a favorite of mine. This is a rare type of song where the segments are indicated by full or nearly full stops in the music, something that I admire The Who for doing. I used to track the parts through the changes in the beat, specifically the drums. When I first heard this song, I took a drum pad & some drumsticks and tried desperately to keep up with Keith Moon. His drumming is fun to watch and fun to try and mirror, despite the fact that it’s nearly impossible to do the latter. While Moon is certainly a standout in this song, I also have always loved the collaborative nature of “A Quick One”. Everyone has a solo singing part, except for Keith (who does just fine lip-syncing and beating the hell out of his drum set, thank you very much.) They were all so different, and yet they meshed together perfectly.
I like to imagine The Rolling Stones standing on the sidelines, watching The Who perform this song. I’m sure they didn’t show it on their faces, but their minds were probably blaring out alarm bells, trying desperately to figure out how to top the un-toppable. This performance is absolutely ridiculous, and while that does refer to how amazing the music is, it also refers to the look of it. Watching this video again in HD made me notice details I never had before, and most of it had to do with clothing. For example, why is nearly the whole crowd wearing neon yellow? They look like excitable extraterrestrial bananas, hopping in and out of their seats and nodding along with the music. Even The Who themselves are widely uncoordinated. You got Entwistle in biker-esque all black with a spiked arm cuff, Daltrey in a beige fringe set, Moon in a bedazzled leotard looking thing, and Townshend in a bright blue shirt that’s accessorized with a cheap-stone covered vest. This begs the question — what do you get when you put a motorcyclist, a cowboy, a gymnast, and the sky on a stage? Well, in this case, you get none other than one of the greatest rock & roll performances of all time.
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