There's a particular phrase, a kind of key expression for me,
that sums up the fantastic sound we used to hear from The Who
at the Marquee.
I think of those beautiful, loud, angelic Tamla
Motown harmonies a la Martha & The Vandellas' Dancing In
The Street, or James Brown's I Don't Mind. "New
Wave R&B", they were calling it. Choirboy singing backed
by thunderous guitars and drums. You know, like someone else said,
"The Who? Like chamber music in the middle of a commando
raid!" On I Don't Mind, I still can hear Daltrey wailing
in blues agony, "And I know, I know…." Then guitars
and drums attacking, in a very fast staccato, Bam.-Bam-Bam-Bam-Bam-Bam-Bam!
Daltrey comes back in, "You're gonna miss me…."
And then that unbelievable chord change… Bom-Bom-Bom-Bom-Bom-Bom-Bom.
Brilliant. Just fucking brilliant! No one else in London is doing
it and I'm in the middle of it, a young nobody from Shepherd's
Bush. In the middle of all the angelic voices and mounting guitar
anger was a little word that always came into my head at that
particular moment - "Fine." Because there was something
fine about being a well dressed Mod at the Marquee. Something
fine about being stuck in the thick of the crowd knowing that
I might be stuck here with all the rest of the sweating, scrushed
bodies, but there was another extension of me up there on that
stage because I knew these guys up there, knew them like they
might be my brothers, and that made me feel special.
The crowd
was a cruel sea, but later on there would be a guaranteed life jacket in a lift home in the van, or a guaranteed seat on
the Piccadilly Line back to Ravenscourt Park
Tube Stop, sitting next to Townshend. There was something fine
about having my hands stuck deep in the pockets of a Henley Boating
Jacket, something fine about my cool strut, that practiced walk,
and something fine about probably the most beautiful sound I ever
heard - The Chiffons' He's So Fine. I used to thrive on
that part-man, part-woman identity because if you listen to Phil Spector's Wall of Sound, it was never really intended for the
well built he-man.
