HE'S HERMAN — Peter Noone outshouts his screaming teen-age audience at the War Memorial appearance of Herman's Hermits. He's Herman. They loved him.

It's Anywhere, U.S. For Touring Hermits

Herman's Hermits, The Who, and the Blues Magoo descended upon Rochester with their electric guitars yesterday.

Rochester was somewhere in America — they could tell that by the more than 5,000 in their audience at the War Memorial — but for all they could tell it could have been Tucson or Kennebunkport.

Some of them go round and round the world almost ceaselessly, rocking and rolling on stages of big auditoriums, hardly ever seeing much more of a city than stretches out from a hotel window or in the radius lit by stage lights.

The Hermits, five young men from Manchester, England, accompanied on their tour by the London aggregation known as The Who, have played "35, 40 or 50" cities on their current seven-week tour of the U.S., one of the Hermits reported in a backstage conversation. The third group, the Blues Magoo, are New Yorkers.

The screaming is what sets the American audiences apart, Keith Hopwood, 20-year-old Hermit explained.

"In Japan, which we only had a day to see, there is always a deathly hush in the audience until you've got through playing, and then they go mad. In places like France and Germany you find a larger percentage of boys go mad — they almost never do here."

Hopwood, who has grown old in show business, having started at the age of 17 (Herman, christened Peter Noone, the youngest, started at 16) is quiet and polite. His hair is longish, but by American teen-age standards, his off stage dress is conservative — neat and subdued.