Now, I also had a crush on him--he was only 15 himself (don't ask about the uncle thingy...but it's true, he was my 12 year old best friend's uncle). And I definitely worshiped the ground he walked on, puka beads & all (it was the 70s, yeesh!). He had this cool attic "tree house" that he'd rigged for stereo sound & it was there, in the throes of pre-teen lust, that I fell for the Who (and the uncle too). He played me Pinball Wizard in its entirety, & that was it...done. I was a convert & from there, well, My Generation, I Can't Explain, Quadrophenia.....followed until I had amassed every single Who album known to man & some bootlegs too. The uncle was soon out of the picture but my love for the band that he also loved remains. To this day, I still think that The Who is my favorite band in the world, even if Pete & Roger are close to my mom's age & can't quite windmill as well, twirl the microphone 10 feet in the air, & don't destroy guitars anymore...so what, their voices are surprisingly still pretty damn good.
Cut to present time, or about 4 years ago. I had just started sailing again & was bringing my son with me for Wednesday races on the West River. If you go back in the blog archives there's a lot about getting back into racing down there. Anyway, after racing, the crew would have dinner together & one evening I sat near one of the guys who appeared to be around my age--turns out that it was Xing Fu but at the time, he was just another dude that I sailed with. We got to talking & found out that we were around the same age & had kids & after a bit of that kind of exchange we also found out that we both loved The Who. We talked about which albums we liked & continued to have a great convo about music. And from that point on, we would sit at the table together after racing & talk about music. He became my "Music Buddy" & then, well...here we are almost 3 years later going to see the band that started it all before we were an us. WOO WHO!
2 comments:
It's so interesting how people get pulled into a love for one band or another. As the small person who so wished to be as cool as her older sister, I will confess that I, too, was obsessed with The Who. In fact, I can't even watch Tommy or see the Broadway rendition of said movie without being pulled into some strange time warp. Your musical taste and passion for certain music is legendary. So glad that you got to share your love with the 2 most important men in your life.
Who? Pete & Roger?
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