The one song by The Who Pete Townshend detests playing live: “He gets angry”
Forget what you might have thought about being in a rock band. Though it might seem like your favourite groups are simply a collection of mates brought together by music and held together by some kind of artistic bond, things are more often the other way around. Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey have never been close friends despite being the only remaining stalwarts of The Who‘s original lineup that still tour with the band today. While we can dream of our favourite bands being the best of friends on and off stage, bizarrely, their disdain may well have played some part in their longevity and seen them become icons of the rock world.
The group have remained near the top of the bill when considering some of the most impactful classic rock acts of all time, down in no small part to The Who’s uncanny ability to play a rock show. In the 1960s, they were the feverish youths looking to smash instruments and tear up the stage, but by the latter part of their career as a foursome, the group created mammoth sets full to the brim with classics. But that doesn’t mean the band actually enjoy playing them, and their windmilling guitarist has an aversion to one track in particular.
A recently unearthed vintage interview shows The Who’s iconic guitarist Townshend discussing his least favourite song to play live, and, in typically cantankerous fashion, his reasoning is almost entirely down to singer Daltrey’s love for the tune.
A prime example of how the two manage to tolerate each other rather than embrace each other is 2019’s record Who which is only their second record in 37 years and was recorded in remote locations so they didn’t have to see each other. The LP was recorded in London and Los Angeles, with the two only being in the same building once during the entire recording process but only crossed paths later. During recording, they communicated through their individual producers, so they didn’t have to speak directly to one another. Things, it would appear, might be considered frosty at best.
The two just innately irritate each other, which is remarkable considering how long they have been in a band together. If you assume that the group have grown apart over the years, with decades of amassing fortunes leading to a cooling of their once fraternal love, then you’d be wrong. Daltrey and Townshend have been at loggerheads from the word go and spent many of their earliest moments together dishing out barbed words and clenched fists.
Another example of how if one does one thing, the other goes out their way to do the other was when Roger Daltrey spoke about his ardent support for the Brexit campaign, and Townshend was vocal in his support for remain saying to The Telegraph: “I’m a Remainer, he [Roger Daltrey] is a Brexiteer. I believe in God; he doesn’t.”
In a rare video where Townshend speaks of the song he hates to play live, it transpires that he doesn’t actually hate the song but just Daltrey’s performance of it: “‘Dreaming From The Waist’ is the song that I hate more than anything on earth, I think I hate it most because it’s the one Roger used to like to play.” There’s a childishness to the comment, which is both incredibly sad and somewhat enjoyable
Then Townshend remembers another song where Daltrey’s live performance irritates him even more than the aforementioned track, revealing: “I think actually ‘Sister Disco’ qualifies, yeah ‘Sister Disco’ I hate even more than ‘Dreaming From The Waist’ because there is a point in which every time we’ve done it where Roger comes over to me, stands next to me and makes some kind of soppy smile, which is supposed to communicate some kind of Everly Brothers relationship we have for the audience, which isn’t actually there.”
The iconic guitarist continues, “It’s supposed to be an act where I’m supposed to collude like ‘we know each other very well we look like enemies, but we are friends really’ kind of look. Often that will be the moment where I look him in the face and go, ‘you fucking wanker’, and he gets angry when I do that,” he says amidst a fit of laughter.
The joy Townshend feels in rejecting the apparently fake adulation of his bandmate is certainly humorous in parts. But it also points out that while we may dream of our favourite groups being the best friends they are in our heads, the truth is, they very rarely are. The Who prove that and then some.
