The Who—violent and aggressive onstage.

A series of catastrophes offstage in the two days before they played last night’s Spectrum date might explain why Pete Townshend attacks guitars, Keith Moon smashes at his drums, Roger Daltrey wails and growls and John Entwhistle plays bass in near-catatonic silence.

“I want to tell Philadelphia how they’ve been treating us. How could they do this to us? Philadelphia’s one of our home-towns in America and now we can’t even get a hotel room.”

That was Peter Rudge, their agent, yelling about the series of misadventures before the concert, at which they were presented plaques commemorating over $5 million sales of the rock opera “Tommy.”

They had just flown in from Atlanta with hotel reservations. But all seven hotel rooms for the Who and their road staff had been given to some Eastern Star ladies here for a convention. It took a few frantic phone calls before they were safely ensconced in another motel.

It’s a long way from the Eastern Star to bombs, but bombs were what occupied the Who’s minds for several days before they played Philadelphia. It all began with the English Expression “go down a bomb,” which means the same as “smashing success.”

Pete Townshend was with the rest of the Who, enroute from Memphis to Atlanta, and was asked by their English agent how their new million-seller “The Who Live at Leeds” (Decca) was doing in New York.

“It’s going down a bomb in New York,” Pete replied proudly.

A passing stewardess heard those words and immediately panicked. She dashed to the cockpit and alerted the pilot to the madman who was going to blow up the plane. The plane was immediately rerouted back to Memphis.

“They kept us there for about 2½ hours,” Keith estimated. “They even set the plane down in a special part of the airport, so if the bomb went off, we wouldn’t blow up the rest of the airport.”

As Keith and John tell it, the police and FBI were brought aboard and began a baggage search while questioning Pete. Finally, realizing their mistake, officials let the group board a plane for Atlanta.

“The Who arrived in Atlanta late for their concert, only to find that their four-ton public address system and other equipment were stuck somewhere along a road. The concert didn’t go