It would seem as though the Who's short tour of Denmark in September was rather hastily organised and without any serious planning. This was not the case. The Who had probably got information of the popularity of their records in Denmark and wanted to come over to "test the grounds". A month later they would also do two concerts in Sweden.
To promote their Danish visit, Carsten Grolin and Bent Rej (a journalist and a photographer) had come over to London to take promotional photos and do a newspaper piece on the Who. Rej photographed the Who on "Ready Steady Go" and took some odd angle pictures of the Who standing in a park. The park photos were later featured on the sleeves of Scandinavian single releases. Rej also photographed the Who walking around in down town Copenhagen; one photo has the band sitting in the lap of H.C. Andersen's "the Little Mermaid"-statue.
They arrived in Copenhagen in the afternoon on September 24th, one day before their first two concerts. They had just been in Holland on a similar tour, and Roger said that he liked Copenhagen and its people better. "In Amsterdam people walked around like zombies!", he said. They got lost on their way from Kastrup airport to Palace Hotel where they were going to hold a press conference. In fact, Pete didn't show up at all, and the other Whos said he was busy washing his clothes. Apparently, this was the first thing he did after arriving in a new country! Later that evening the Who went out for a night on the town. They visited "Hit House", a Marquee like ballroom which they would play on the Danish tour the following year. They watched a local act who performed that night, but the audience's attention was directed towards the balcony where the Who sat, and they begged the Who to get up on stage. The Hit House manager quickly said no, not having a good enough insurance to put on a Who show in his ballroom.
Th concerts
- 25.09.1965: Elsinore, Folkets Hus
- 25.09.1965: Copenhagen, K. B. Hallen
- 26.09.1965: Aarhus, Hallen
- 26.09.1965: Aalborg, Fredrikstorv
Some footnotes added in 1995:
The Who recorded "My Generation" on October 13th 1965, but they had done one version on Ready, Steady, Go on, I believe, the 4th of September. This version was very raw and unfinished, lacking the typical drive of the real My Generation. So it's quite possible that they performed My Generation during the European tours of September/October.The Namelosers, a Swedish pop band, was also one of the support bands when the Who played in Copenhagen in September '65. After the Who's set Tommy Hansson, lead singer in the Namelosers, was in the dressing room to witness Roger Daltrey burst in - furious. Daltrey rushed over to Keith Moon who had already sat down, lifted him up by the collar and gave him a good "header" across the nose. Keith, Roger explained as the blood was seeping out of Keith's nose, had been playing too loud!
Some words between the lines in the review of the Helsingr concert indicated that some kind of quarrel like the one above took place backstage too. After the Danish concerts, Roger Daltrey was virtually thrown out of the band because of his "bad temper". Read more in "Before I Get Old" by Dave Marsh.
The cover of the Danish pop magazine "Borge" were pictures taken by Bent Rej in 1965. The issue was #8 Thursday 6 October 1966. Actually, it was the backside, not the front.
