The Who, Keith Moon, an exploding waterbed and a destroyed hotel room
The tales of The Who and Keith Moon trashing hotel rooms are so numerous and varied that the details can feel a bit redundant. The story tends to run like this: The Who come back to their room, they drink, they drink some more, and invariably, Keith Moon drinks too much. They trash their hotel room, and they leave with a bill in the thousands. But not on one particular occasion.
No, things would run a little differently on this occasion, though admittedly, with many of the same protagonists—namely, Keith Moon—and a similar ending.
Moon was widely known for his pranks and party antics; he couldn’t be stopped by management or by his own bandmates. Whether it was throwing cake around like a madman or driving a Lincoln Continental into a swimming pool, it’s safe to say that ‘Moon the Loon’ enjoyed being on tour. It has to be said that Moon’s destruction wasn’t limited to just one hotel or one night. He had a penchant for blowing up toilets with explosives, particularly cherry bombs and M-80 firecrackers. This bizarre habit started when he discovered that a well-placed explosive could cause a toilet to shatter spectacularly. It became an ongoing joke for Moon, much to the dismay of hotel staff and management, who often found themselves dealing with the aftermath of these explosive pranks.
However, one night, on the swankier side of Copenhagen, firecrackers were not required. Moon became somewhat fascinated by the waterbed in his room and hatched a plan to enlist the help of The Who’s guitarist Pete Townshend in order to manoeuvre the water-filled mattress down into the lobby. He attempted to move the gelatinous blob into the elevator with Pete and send it down, but before they could achieve their goal, they hit a snag, and the mattress burst, emptying an unfathomable amount of water into the hotel room and halls.
While water swirled around them, the thought of an unimaginable bill rose just as quickly as the water damage ravaged the plush suite. The band were likely to be a hit with another invoice of thousands to put everything right—but Moon had another idea.
Instead of offering his usual unapologetic apology and signing his name at the bottom of the bill, Moon instead decided to go on the attack. He rang the hotel manager and claimed that the bed had burst without any warning. The subsequent wave destroyed all his expensive stage clothes, and Keith demanded to know what the manager was going to do about it.
It worked. The manager, in fact, was so struck by the possibility of replacing the illustrious wardrobe of The Who drummer that he not only apologised but quickly moved the star into the presidential suite, filled floor to ceiling with antiques.
The Copenhagen waterbed incident is remembered as one of the many wild stories that define Keith Moon’s legacy—a tale of a rock star who lived as if every day was a party, with little regard for the consequences. It’s a story that has been told and retold, adding to the mythology of one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most notorious figures.
