Moon the Buffoon!
February 2nd 2008 13:20
Many moons ago (pun intended) I met Keith Moon, drummer from The Who. I had loved Moon from the moment I first saw him, in the early 60's, kick over his drums, while hitting every one of them as they fell. He epitomised everything that was exciting, dangerous and magical about the rock and roll world, he was an incredibly exciting drummer.
My eldest sister knew of my avid love of Keith Moon and The Who, (I didn't stop playing their album Tommy), and when she was invited to attend the touring orchestral version of the Who's rock opera, Tommy, she took me along. I was a young lad bursting with excitement at the prospect of finally meeting one of my heroes, however, within my family back then, one did not show such juvenile common displays of enthusiasm, one maintained an appropriate adult demeanour, to avoid a scathing sarcastic remark from one's male siblings, it was tough at times.
I saw the show at the race course, tens of thousands of fans had filled the place to bursting, and my sister said we were to pick up the tickets at the venue, this made me nervous, as something was bound to go wrong, and it did!
We were supposed to meet the tour producer, or one of his flunkies, at the artist's entrance to the race course. Our taxi glided by a darkened side gate, one old fat man in a white dust coat stood at the gate, "There it is!" I chirped excitedly, no it cannot be that dark place my sister assured. On we went to the front gate, where we sauntered by hundreds of long suffering fans, right up to the gate, no tickets left there, so my sister used the magic words, the name of the producer, and a gate man recognized her. So we were in, but not at the designated VIP area, right in front of the stage, we ended up more to the left front of stage, and I was a little disappointed. More so to come, The Who were not appearing in this show, saving themselves for the bigger markets in America and Europe I supposed, I felt let down, we were an afterthought audience to the great ones, all except one of them...KEITH MOON!
He played the part of "wicked old Uncle Ernie", and was a riot! I was also embarrassed, as it appeared he was incredibly drunk and actually fell into the orchestra twice! The audience loved it, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra looked less than amused, particularly the musicians he fell onto.
Afterwards, we waited in a void area, where normally horses galloped madly around, and then I met Lou Adler, tall guy with what seemed an afro, not so odd in those days, and he was wearing a Tommy square neck jumper, the Tommy logo woven into the jumper as a pattern would be, I loved it, and boldly for me, instantly after being introduced I asked him if I could have it, "No, it's the only one I've got and I can't get another one."
That disappointment was interrupted by various performers coming from the stage area, Doug Parkinson said hello as he passed by, then the man himself, Keith Moon. I wasn't star struck, more dumbfounded at his performance onstage, for he was stone cold sober as we met, yet I was sure he was drunk onstage!
After the obligatory handshake and smile and 'thanks', he wandered off to the limmo, taking straight to the party at the hotel, I wanted to go, my sister wouldn't let me, and Adler remarked to my astonishment that Moon wasn't drunk, "he'll be getting pretty drunk right about now! In fact, I better follow him to make sure he doesn't get into trouble!"
And with that, he too disappeared into the night, and I was left to ponder the moment, all the while slightly seething that I didn't get more time with the great man, Keith Moon.
| 73 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog