Ronnie Wood on The Who: “There was nothing quite so electric as the original line-up”
When The Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood was at the beginning of his career, London was awash with mind-blowing rock and roll bands. It was the perfect environment to learn his craft, and there was no act he preferred to watch in the sweaty clubs of the capital than The Who, who were consistently “electric” in their performance.
Before Wood established himself with The Faces, he was a prominent figure in the local music scene and witnessed The Who rise from nobodies to superstars. At the time, he was playing with The Birds, not to be mixed up with the American group, and they forged a friendly rivalry with The Who. The Roger Daltrey-led group set a high bar which the rest of the scene attempted to follow, to varying results.
In Wood’s memoir How Can It Be?, he explained, “Keith Moon actually sat in with us one night, he used to be a big supporter”. Detailing further, the guitarist continued: “I remember one night, The Who came down. They had a hit with ‘I Can’t Explain’, and they all came in the Ealing Club saying ‘We’re Number One! We’re Number One!’, and we’re going ‘You Bastards!’ from the stage’. We had a friendly rivalry with them“.
While The Birds never had a number one single and lost the feud with The Who, Wood has no animosity towards his old foes. In fact, he even sold his London mansion to Pete Townshend in the late 1990s, and their friendship dates back to when The Who performed as The High Numbers.
However, despite his close relationship with his fellow guitarist, The Who’s first hit single in 1964 is still a sour memory for Wood. He later retold the memory to LouderSound: “I first met Pete, who is still a neighbour of mine, back in the old Ealing Club days when The Who first had ‘I Can’t Explain’ in the charts. I was in The Birds and they were going: ‘We’re number one!’ And we were going: ‘Fuck off back to Acton!’ We were so jealous. The High Numbers were brilliant, and the early Who, especially at the Marquee, were incredible. They’re still great today, but there was nothing quite so electric as the original line-up.”
While The Who may have shouted about their number one single from the rooftops, ‘I Can’t Explain’, only peaked in eighth position in the United Kingdom and never topped the chart. Additionally, years later, the tables turned, and Pete Townshend admitted to being jealous of the Faces because of their tight-knit bond.
He told Uncut: “I used to love the way they worked in the studio; it was all about having a laugh. Later, when the Faces came together with Ronnie Wood and Rod Stewart, hanging out with them was the best place to be on the planet. Being in The Who was fucking grim by comparison.”
Listen to ‘I Can’t Explain’ below.
