By Martin H. Rots

In 1968, the Who were one of my favorite bands.  At that time they were running neck and neck with the Stones for my second favorite group.  I wore out Happy Jack and the Who Sell Out waiting for their next release.  In April 1969 our local underground station, the venerated WABX, announced the Who would be playing the Grande Ballroom on May 9, 10 and 11.

We didn't rush out to stand in line all night for tickets.  It didn't require any more forethought than showing up at the door on the night of the concert with a little bit of cash in your hand.  Most shows were three or four bucks and didn't require planning on the scale of D-Day to attend.  Once inside, you either got comfortable on the floor or stood around socializing, waiting for the music to start.  The Grande had a unique aroma that I recall to this day, it was a combination of reefer, Kools, sweat and incense.

My friend Scott and I decided to go on Saturday night for various reasons and left early anticipating a large turnout.  We waited in line in the alley behind the building with the rest of the crowd.  At one point, Townsend and Moon appeared on the fire escape and waved down to all of us waiting to get inside.  The crowd was in a good mood in anticipation of seeing the Who, a favorite with Detroit audiences at that time.  We moved up the steps and found a place on the floor right in front of the stage.  The stage wasn't a massive feat of structural engineering, it was about three feet high and designed to hold an orchestra from the big band era.
 
The Who's next album, Tommy was being played on the radio, but it wouldn't be released until May 23.  Townsend looked forward to playing Detroit and insisted it be the first gig of the 1969 North American Tour.  The Detroit audience was demanding and if there were any parts of the show that needed attention, Pete was certain they'd let him know.  The Who's former road manager, Tom Wright, was now managing the Grande and the band happily anticipated seeing him.

The first band, a local group called the Maend opened the show  and were promptly booed off the stage by the middle of their second tune.  I thought to myself, "Hope things don't get ugly tonight."  I never heard of them again, maybe they changed their name and played disco.

Joe Cocker and the Grease Band were up next.  In 1969, there were still plenty of greasers in Detroit.  There was an undeclared war being waged between the longhairs and the greasers.  A rumble made its way through the crowd as the Grease Band set up.  No one was happy about the intrusion of greasers in our sanctuary.  One local rock club, The Crow's Nest, had a sign at the door that simply stated, "No Grease."

When Cocker took the stage he was unlike anything anyone had ever seen.  He was like an epileptic Ray Charles in the midst of giving birth to air guitar.  Relieved there were no greasers to deal with, Cocker was met with thunderous applause after every tune.  He finished that night with A Little Help From My Friends.

The roadies set up the Who while everyone excitedly anticipated their set.  After Cocker and the Grease Band, the Who would have to cook extra hard.  We had no way of knowing while we sat there, but we wouldn't be disappointed.  Townsend would stick the neck of his Gibson SG through the grill of his Hiwatt cabinet, Keith would kick over his drums while Daltrey twirled his mike into the stage while Entwhistle played on.

I think it was the best show I can remember seeing during that time period.  The set the Who performed that night was very close to the set they would perform later that summer at Woodstock.  They were on the brink of making the leap to superstardom, but they were still hungry and you could hear it in the music.
 
By the next year, after Live at Leeds, the Woodstock film and soundtrack, they were huge.  Tommy was everywhere, it was inescapable.  It would simultaneously be playing on multiple radio stations, coming from the eight track in the Mustang sitting next to you at the light and blasting from the kid next door's bedroom stereo.  It soon began to grate on my nerves.  Everything the Who had done previously to Tommy had been forgotten in favor of the ubiquitous Tommy.
 
I didn't listen to them again for a long time.  I really couldn't.  If they came on the radio, I changed the station.  Happy Jack and The Who Sell Out stayed in their jackets for several years.  The Who had been our special secret that long ago night at the Grande.  Tommy had introduced them to the world and when they walked off stage that night, they said goodbye to us and Detroit.  We would never see the band that played that night again.  Pete, Roger, Keith and John would come back again, but as stars, not the dynamic young men we saw that May night in 1969.  In December 1975 the Who came back to Michigan and played in front of an audience of 75,962 at the Pontiac Silverdome setting a record broken by Led Zeppelin two years later.
 
They had become Tommy the Who.