On the Town

Eardrum Punctures All Over the Who

John L. Wasserman

WITH THEIR concert last night in Seattle, the Who concluded their American tour and all performing for at least the next six months.

The group will concentrate instead on a film, but the din which they gaily created and the eardrums which they cavalierly punctured during their Sunday-Tuesday assault will surely last until next they grace our amplifiers.

It is a tiresome cliche mouthed by those who do not like rock music that it is loud. But that, for a variety of reasons, is one of its attractions to those who would rather listen to “Tommy” than Ira Blue. So, talk among rockers of a band being loud is about as common as talk among pro football players about the roughness of hockey. Since the Who’s Sunday and Monday night concerts at the Civic Auditorium, however, there has been talk of little else. Sunday night was so loud up front that people with choice tickets were exchanging them for row 27 in order to survive. Tuesday night was apparently worse. Bill Graham was muttering and even Peter Rudge, the group’s manager, was asking the band come down a bit. The decibel measurement at the rear wall of the Civic — the REAR wall, mind you — was 106. If that means nothing to you, suffice it to say that 106 decibels can melt Christmas tree ornaments.