At left is the leader of The Who, Peter Townshend during his performance Saturday night. Above is a Belmont Abbey student, Kevin Murphy, who fought the last-minute crush at the Coliseum's box office to get tickets to see the British rock group. (Observer staff photos by John Daughtry)

It was a sleeping-late Saturday morning and that was part of the problem.

The phone rang, I managed to croak "Hello" and heard a woman say:

"Kays, excuse me, but do you know who?"

"One more time," I said.

"I'm sorry. Did I wake you up? This is Bonnie Caldwell, Dee's wife, and he's gone off somewhere, which is the reason I'm asking you."

"Oh. Oh-oh. Yeah. Yesterday you wanted to know why the Cougars traded Bob Verga and I didn't know. Well, I still don't know."

"THAT isn't what I'm asking you now," Bonnie said. "What I want to know now is if you know who!"

"Who, what?"

"Who who is, that's what!" Bonnie was close to screaming.

By this time I was sitting on the side of the bed and I said: "Wait just a minute" and I went to the bathroom and washed my face and got a drink of water and came back and told Bonnie: "Look, let's start all over."

"Well, it must be some kind of a joke, My son Mike just called from Furman and told me to get four tickets to who because they might be gone when he gets here and if I had any trouble to call you."

"Four tickets to who? Oh, sure, now I know. 'Who' is a hard rock group."

"I don't know," Bonnie said.

"You don't know what?" I asked.

"I don't know who is a hard rock group," she said. "Now look here, Kays, you and Mike must be pulling some kind of a joke on me. I called to ask a simple question — if you know who who is and you ask me who is a hard rock group, I don't know!"

"Bonnie," I said, "I'm not asking, I'm telling. 'Who' is a group that plays hard rock music. 'Who' is here in town tonight."

"'Who's in town? Are you asking or telling this time?"

"I'm telling you. 'Who' is playing next to 'Hair.'"

"I don't know that, either!"

"Bonnie, I'm not asking. I'm telling again. 'Hair' has filled the Auditorium and 'Who' is in the Coliseum."

"I don't know who is in the Coliseum. The Checkers are on the road and so are the Cougars and after trading Bob Verga I don't care if they lose and what do you mean the Auditorium is full of hair? Whose?"

"No. No-no-no-no. 'Who' is a hairy bunch but they're in the Coliseum but never mind. Listen to me. Mike wants four tickets to see and hear 'Who' and don't worry about who 'Who' is. Just call the Coliseum box office and ask if they have four tickets for 'Who.' Don't even mention 'Hair.'"

"Now you just stop that," she said. "I don't know what you and Mike are up to but I don't think it's funny and I'm not about to phone the Coliseum and have them think I'm some kind of a nut."

"Bonnie," I said, sighing, "I don't blame you. I'll call them for you and I'll take care of everything. Don't worry about it."

"Oh, you're sweet," she said. "And while you're talking to them will you find out one more thing for me?"

"What's that?"

"Ask them why they traded Bob Verga and tell them I think they're a bunch of old meanies . . . after you get the tickets."

When a Saturday starts that way…

What can you expect on Sunday?

Coliseum Bursts As The Who Screams Out

By HOWARD MANLLOFF

Observer Staff Writer

Who is not a subtle group.

Just ask the 12,000 or so people who filled the Coliseum to capacity Saturday night.

The Who pushes music to its outer limits, pull it back slightly just for a rest, and then push it out again. They jump, they scream, they throw things, but most of all they make music, a fierce, visceral music.

Four men, Peter Townshend, the lead guitarist, who also writes many of the songs. Dressed in a white pantsuit,

Townshend flits all over the stage. He dances, he prances, he jumps.

He makes his left arm rigid and in windmill fashion beats out a staccato of chords.

Roger Daltrey, the lead singer, plants his feet two feet apart, leans backward and in an adult version of King of the Mountain dares anyone to outsing him.

When he's not singing, he's dancing or magically twirling his microphone five, ten feet in the air and calmly catching

strong as The Who's needs drums so much, Moon at times becomes The Who, with little else seeming to matter but his thundering drums.

The bass guitarist, John Entwistle, is the only non-showman in the group. Just stands back there and plays.

The four of them together project a certain swagger. "We're gonna play our music," they seem to be saying. "If you like it fine; if you don't, who cares?"

After their first song, Townshend asked the audience to stay seated, which they rarely did, and then warned them it would be hard to sit through the next song. It was.

The music of The Who conveys the vitality that is the essence of life. Although their means of conveying their thoughts are not subtle, they are not unaware of subtlety. In the beautiful "Behind Blue Eyes," Daltrey, for once calm, sings, "No one knows what it's like to be the bad man, the sad man, behind the blue eyes."

After they had already been on stage an hour, The Who launched a 30 minutes of music from their rock opera "Tommy." The Coliseum has never seen a half hour like that one.

Moon's drums sounding like an unending thunderclap, suddenly giving way to an insistent guitar chord, then just as suddenly starting again. The fantasy of "Pinball Wizard," as Daltrey and Townshend sing of the prowess of Tommy, the deaf, dumb, and blind boy. And finally, the savage Daltrey's pleading, "See me, feel me, hear me, touch me."