Sore toe was price of greatness

PETER Townshend took off an enormous brown boot, peeled off his sock and exposed a battered and inflamed big toe. "What about that?" he said.

The toe was one of the casualties of the record-breaking tour which brought Townshend and The Who to Trentham Gardens on Sunday.

After a show which was better in nearly every respect than the one they presented at Trentham a year ago, I talked to credible. After Green's, I reckon Trentham is about the best.

"I hope sometime we can fix up an off-tour date in the Potteries—but it's difficult, of course."

The new £20,000 sound system seemed to perform immaculately on Sunday. "Yes, I'm very pleased with it," said Townshend. "Fortunately we got the kind of people working with us who have got the right approach to PA. They know the difference between quality sound and sheer volume."

There isn't much more to add about the act itself (which I reviewed in Monday's Sentinel). The Who simply are incredible. Roll on their next visit.

Townshend, about tours, guitars and audiences.

During Sunday's act he replied rather bluntly to those in the audience who wanted to see his celebrated guitar-smashing routine.

"I hope they didn't get the wrong idea," he told me. "It might have seemed a bit unfair to say what I did.

"O.K. I smash a guitar up and the audience love it. It's part of the act—or used to be—and the kids expect it."

The best . . .

So why cut it out? "Well it's not just a question of money—though the guitars are not cheap, obviously.

"It's really a matter of getting the best sound out of a guitar. If you are going to smash one up in every concert, you never have a chance to break a guitar in — and that's important.

"It takes a while to get an instrument working the way you want it to. If you are not used to it, you don't get the sound you want."

Roger Daltrey told me he reckoned the Trentham Gardens audience was among the best they had ever played to.

Townshend agreed. "When we were here a year ago, the audience were great—even though it was not one of our best ever performances. It was the last gig on a long tour so you can imagine how we felt.

"The most responsive audience we know is the one at Green's Playhouse in Glasgow. They are in-

Roger Daltrey, vocalist with The Who, pictured at Trentham Gardens on Sunday. At one point fans grabbed him and tried to pull him off the stage—a hefty "roadie" came to his rescue, in the nick of time.