FLA
Heads banging in rhythm, fists hammering knees in time, stamping, screaming, shrieking, whistling: the active minority of the audience. Hammering, jumping, extravagant, ecstatic-the roaring actors. Thundering, huge, black. the noisy wall of sound. Colourful, dazzling, flickering, changing: the colouring spotlights. Vibrating to the rhythm, filled with smoke, dark: Muensterland Hall. Saturday evening: The Who.
Special treatment of a special audience: police, military police, german field police, ambulance, youth office, searching of brief cases, barricades right across the hall. »We are not in the army!« the organizer comments the delay of half an hour. »Army« is a good argument. Most of the 3500, whistling impatiently just a moment before, are happy.
The audience looks out for the mass to romp. It lacks mostly. Despite whiping rhythms often inert. Never misbehaving. Loosing stiffness only when listening to well-known tunes. Only a few are always in action. They owe it to theirselves, to their hair, their clothes. The Who: physical strain, nearly two hours, uninterrupted.
Pete Townshend, who wears colourful denims with batik, jumps into the air again and again. Stamping and raising quite a lot of dust he comes back down on stage. He makes wide steps. Uncontrolled. Breaking out to the right or to the left. Very fast he spins his right arm in circles. He sings falsetto, never stands still. He is the rhythm's nervous wreck. John Entwistle wears a black leather jacket depicting a white skeleton. Macabre. Antipole of the other three. Stiff. Unaffected. Making rhythm by himself, but not himself a rhythm. Roger Daltrey hurls the microphone. He is pure ecstasy or devotes himself to it. He crooks his body, shakes himself, sings, screams. He is music transfered into body movement. With his face to the audience he gives instructions how to listen to them. With his back to the audience and swinging hips he stealthily takes a drink.
Keith Moon is the producer of the beat. Beater, drummer, timpanist, sweater. Quite often he dries his head with a white rag. Always smiles. With his beats he rules the instruments which surround him.
Summaries: The organizer says: »The boys have given all.« The police: »A smooth task.« 3500 scream »encore«, until they are tired of it. Well-behaving they leave the hall. Muensterland Hall. Saturday evening. The Who.
