The Who

• 1. Introduction

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  The Who played the Valley, the home ground of Charlton Athletic, on the 31st of May 1976. The Guinness Book of Records listed that show as the world's loudest concert, at over 120 dB. The English rock band had formed in London in 1964. Its classic lineup was singer Roger Daltrey, guitarist Pete Townshend, bassist John Entwistle and drummer Keith Moon. In 1990 the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Few bands argued so fiercely among themselves, smashed so much equipment, or left behind so many records that other musicians point to as an influence. How did four people from London become one of the most influential rock bands of the 20th century? Why did a group built on noise and rebellion keep coming back to the stage for decades? And what did all of it cost the people inside the band?

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• 2. Acton Beginnings

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  Pete Townshend's father, Cliff, played saxophone, and his mother, Betty, had sung in the entertainment division of the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. Both parents supported their son's love of rock and roll. Townshend, Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle all grew up in Acton, London, and attended Acton County Grammar School.

  Townshend and Entwistle became friends in their second year at Acton County and formed a trad jazz group. Entwistle also played French horn in the Middlesex Schools' Symphony Orchestra. Both boys loved rock, and Townshend particularly admired Cliff Richard's debut single, "Move It". Entwistle took up guitar but struggled because of his large fingers. Hearing the guitar work of Duane Eddy moved him over to bass. He could not afford one, so he built a bass at home. Townshend went on to Ealing Art College, which he later described as profoundly influential on the course of the Who.

  Daltrey was a year ahead of them and had moved to Acton from Shepherd's Bush, a more working-class area. He had trouble fitting in, discovered gangs and rock and roll, and was expelled at 15. He found work on a building site. In 1959 he started the Detours, the band that would evolve into the Who.

  The Detours played professional gigs such as corporate and wedding functions, and Daltrey watched the finances as closely as the music. By chance he spotted Entwistle on the street carrying a bass and recruited him. In mid-1961 Entwistle suggested Townshend as guitarist. Daltrey played rhythm guitar, Harry Wilson drummed, and Colin Dawson sang. They played instrumentals by the Shadows and the Ventures, along with pop and trad jazz covers. Townshend said Daltrey "ran things the way he wanted them".

  Wilson was fired in mid-1962 and replaced by Doug Sandom, who was older than the rest, married, and a more proficient musician. Dawson left after frequent arguments with Daltrey, and Gabby Connolly briefly took his place before Daltrey moved to lead vocals. With Entwistle's encouragement, Townshend became the sole guitarist.

  Townshend's mother helped the group land a management contract with a local promoter, Robert Druce, who booked them as a support act. They learned from the bands they backed, including Screaming Lord Sutch, Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers, and Johnny Kidd and the Pirates. The Pirates also had just one guitarist, Mick Green, and he inspired Townshend to blend rhythm and lead. Entwistle's bass, meanwhile, began to carry melodies.

  In February 1964 the Detours learned of another group, Johnny Devlin and the Detours, and decided to change their name. Townshend and his house-mate Richard Barnes spent a night on the problem, working from a theme of joke announcements such as "No One" and "the Group". Townshend preferred "the Hair". Barnes liked "the Who" because it "had a pop punch". Daltrey chose "the Who" the next morning. The name was settled, but Doug Sandom was still on drums, and that would not last.

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• 3. Mods and Smashed Guitars

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  Doug Sandom's time in the band ended after an audition with Chris Parmeinter of Fontana Records, arranged by their new manager, Helmut Gorden. Parmeinter found problems with the drumming. According to Sandom, Townshend immediately turned on him and threatened to fire him if his playing did not improve. Sandom left in disgust but agreed to lend his kit to stand-ins. He and Townshend did not speak to each other again for 14 years.

  In late April 1964, at a gig at the Oldfield Hotel in Greenford with a stand-in drummer, the band first met Keith Moon. Moon grew up in Wembley and had been drumming in bands since 1961. He played with a semi-professional group called the Beachcombers but wanted to play full time. He sat in for a few songs, breaking a bass drum pedal and tearing a drum skin. The band were impressed by his energy and enthusiasm and offered him the job. He still played a few more dates with the Beachcombers, but when dates clashed he chose the Who.

  Peter Meaden, the next manager, saw the group as ideal representatives of the growing mod movement. Mod took in fashion, scooters and music such as rhythm and blues, soul and modern jazz. Meaden renamed the band the High Numbers, dressed them in mod clothes, and secured a second, more favourable Fontana audition. He wrote the lyrics for both sides of their single "Zoot Suit" and "I'm the Face". The tune for "Zoot Suit" came from "Misery" by the Dynamics, and "I'm the Face" borrowed from Slim Harpo's "I Got Love If You Want It". The single failed to reach the top 50, and the band went back to calling themselves the Who.

  Onstage, none of the four played their instruments in a conventional way. Daltrey swung his microphone cable like a whip and sometimes leapt into the crowd. Moon tossed drumsticks into the air mid-beat. Townshend mimed machine-gunning the crowd with his guitar, played with a fast windmilling arm, or stood with his arms aloft while the guitar fed back, a posture dubbed "the Bird Man".

  Two filmmakers, Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, replaced Meaden. They wanted a young, unsigned rock group to make a film about, and they had seen the band at the Railway Hotel in Wealdstone, which had become a regular venue. Lambert related to Townshend's art school background and urged him to write songs. In August they filmed a promotional piece featuring the group and its audience at the Railway. The set shifted toward soul, rhythm and blues and Motown covers, and the band coined the slogan "Maximum R&B".

  In June 1964, during a show at the Railway, Townshend accidentally broke the head of his guitar on the low ceiling of the stage. The audience laughed. Angry, he smashed the instrument on the stage, picked up another guitar and carried on. The following week the crowd was keen to see a repeat, and Moon obliged by kicking over his drum kit.

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• 4. Hits and Quarrels

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  In early November 1964 the Who recorded "I Can't Explain" at Pye Studios in Marble Arch. Townshend had written it to sound deliberately like the Kinks, hoping to catch the ear of the American producer Shel Talmy, who had produced that band. It worked. Talmy watched the group rehearse, signed them to his production company, and sold the recording to the US arm of Decca. As a result, their early British singles came out on Brunswick, a UK Decca label for American artists. The Ivy League sang backing vocals, and Jimmy Page played fuzz guitar on the B-side, "Bald Headed Woman".

  Pirate stations such as Radio Caroline took up the record. That mattered because Britain had no commercial radio stations and BBC Radio played little pop. The television show Ready Steady Go! helped too. Lambert and Stamp were asked to find "typical teens", so they invited the group's regular crowd from the Goldhawk Social Club. Between the television reception and pirate airplay, the single slowly climbed the charts and reached the top 10 in early 1965. That year the Who also made their first appearance on Top of the Pops, at the BBC's Dickenson Road Studios in Manchester.

  The follow-up, "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere", was written by Townshend and Daltrey. Pick sliding, toggle switching and feedback made it so unconventional that US Decca first rejected it. It still reached the UK top 10 and became the theme song of Ready Steady Go! Lambert's push toward original material did not sit well with Daltrey, and a session of R&B covers went unreleased.

  The group's tour of Denmark in September 1965 brought the tension to a head. Daltrey threw Moon's amphetamines down a toilet and assaulted him. Back in Britain he was sacked, then reinstated on the condition that the group become a democracy without his dominant leadership. Apart from Moon and Entwistle, who liked to visit West End nightclubs together, the members were not close friends. Around this time they hired Richard Cole as a roadie.

  Townshend first wrote "My Generation", released in October, as a slow blues. After several failed attempts it became a more powerful song with a bass solo from Entwistle. A vocal stutter imitated the speech of a mod on amphetamines, and the song has two key changes. Townshend insisted in interviews that the line "Hope I die before I get old" was not meant literally. At No. 2, it remains the group's highest-charting UK single. The debut album, My Generation, followed in late 1965 with the title track, "The Kids Are Alright" and several James Brown covers that Daltrey favoured.

  After that album the Who fell out with Talmy, which abruptly ended their recording contract. The legal fight left Talmy holding the rights to the master tapes, so the album could not be reissued until 2002. The band signed to Robert Stigwood's label, Reaction, and released "Substitute". Townshend said he wrote it about an identity crisis and as a parody of the Rolling Stones' "19th Nervous Breakdown". It was the first single on which he played an acoustic twelve-string guitar. Talmy took legal action over the B-side, "Instant Party", and the single was withdrawn. A new B-side, "Waltz for a Pig", was recorded by the Graham Bond Organisation under the name "The Who Orchestra".

  In 1966 came "I'm a Boy", about a boy dressed as a girl, taken from an abandoned collection of songs called Quads. "Happy Jack" and an EP, Ready Steady Who, followed. On the 20th of May 1966, Moon and Entwistle arrived late to a gig after being on the Ready Steady Go! set with the Beach Boys' Bruce Johnston. During "My Generation", Townshend attacked Moon with his guitar, leaving him with a black eye and bruises. Moon and Entwistle quit, then changed their minds and rejoined a week later. Jeff Beck had Moon drum on "Beck's Bolero", alongside Page, John Paul Jones and Nicky Hopkins, because he was "trying to get Keith out of the Who".

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• 5. Pop Art Abroad

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  To ease the band's financial pressure, Lambert arranged a songwriting deal that required each member to write two songs for the next album. Entwistle contributed "Boris the Spider" and "Whiskey Man" and found a role as second songwriter. The band needed an extra ten minutes of music, so Lambert encouraged Townshend to write a longer piece, "A Quick One, While He's Away". Its suite of song fragments tells of a girl who has an affair while her lover is away and is ultimately forgiven. The album, A Quick One, titled Happy Jack in the US, reached No. 4 in the UK. In 1967 the single "Pictures of Lily" made the UK top 5.

  By 1966 Ready Steady Go! had ended, mod was going out of fashion, and the Who were competing on the London circuit with Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Lambert and Stamp decided that commercial success in the US was paramount. They arranged a deal with promoter Frank Barsalona for a short package tour in New York. The shows, with the guitar smashing and drum kicking intact, were well received and led to the band's first major US appearance, at the Monterey Pop Festival.

  Moon especially disliked the hippie movement, and the group expected their violent stage act to contrast sharply with the peaceful festival. Hendrix was on the bill too, and planned to smash his guitar. Townshend verbally abused him and accused him of stealing the act. The two argued over who should go on first, and the Who won. They had brought hired equipment, while Hendrix shipped over his regular touring gear from Britain, including a full Marshall stack. Biographer Tony Fletcher said Hendrix sounded "so much better than the Who it was embarrassing". Even so, Monterey gave the Who recognition in America, and "Happy Jack" reached the US top 30.

  A US tour supporting Herman's Hermits followed. The Hermits were a straightforward pop band who enjoyed drugs and practical jokes, and they bonded with Moon. He was thrilled to learn that cherry bombs were legal to buy in Alabama. Moon soon gained a reputation for wrecking hotel rooms, with a particular interest in blowing up toilets. Entwistle said the first cherry bomb they tried "blew a hole in the suitcase and the chair". After a gig in Flint, Michigan, on Moon's 21st birthday, the 23rd of August 1967, the entourage caused $24,000 of damage at the hotel. Moon knocked out one of his front teeth. Daltrey later said the tour brought the band closer, since a support act could turn up, play a short set and carry no major responsibilities.

  After that tour the Who recorded "I Can See for Miles". Townshend had written it in 1966 but held off recording it until he was sure it could be produced well. He called it "the ultimate Who record" and was disappointed that it reached only No. 10 in the UK. In the US it became their best-selling single, reaching No. 9. On another US tour, with Eric Burdon and the Animals, the band mimed to two songs on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Moon bribed a stage hand to put explosives in his drum kit, and the man loaded it with ten times the expected quantity. The blast threw Moon off his drum riser and a flying piece of cymbal cut his arm. Townshend's hair was singed and his left ear was left ringing.

  The next album, The Who Sell Out, was a concept album parodying pirate radio, which the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act 1967 had outlawed in August of that year. It had humorous jingles, mock commercials, a mini rock opera called "Rael", and "I Can See for Miles". The group declared themselves a pop art band and treated advertising as an art form. They recorded a wide range of radio spots, including ones for canned milkshakes and the American Cancer Society, in defiance of the hippie counterculture's anti-consumerism. Townshend stated, "We don't change offstage. We live pop art". Later that year Lambert and Stamp formed Track Records, distributed by Polydor. Track signed Hendrix and became the imprint for all the Who's UK output until the mid-1970s.

  The group began 1968 with a tour of Australia and New Zealand alongside the Small Faces. The local authorities were hostile, and the New Zealand Truth called the musicians "unwashed, foul-smelling, booze-swilling no-hopers". After an incident on a flight to Sydney, the band were briefly arrested in Melbourne and forced to leave the country. Prime Minister John Gorton sent them a telegram telling them never to return. The Who would not play in Australia again until 2004.

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• 6. Tommy and Beyond

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  In August 1968 Townshend described the plot of a new album to Jann Wenner, the editor of Rolling Stone, in remarkable detail. He had stopped using drugs and become interested in the teachings of Meher Baba, and he explained how the project related to them. The album went through several working titles, including Deaf Dumb and Blind Boy and Amazing Journey, before Townshend settled on Tommy. It told of a deaf, dumb and blind boy and his attempt to communicate with others. Songs such as "Welcome" and "Amazing Journey" were inspired by Baba, and others came from things the band had seen. "Sally Simpson" was about a fan who tried to climb onto the stage at a Doors gig the band attended. "Pinball Wizard" was written so that Nik Cohn, a New York Times journalist and pinball enthusiast, would review the album kindly.

  Townshend said, "I wanted the story of Tommy to have several levels... a rock singles level and a bigger concept level". Then he decided to make it a double album to tell the story in enough depth, and a planned Christmas 1968 release slipped. Lambert was a key figure in keeping the group on task. He typed up a script so the band could understand how the songs fitted together. When the album came out in May 1969, it sold 200,000 copies in the US in its first two weeks. Life magazine said that "for sheer power, invention and brilliance of performance, Tommy outstrips anything which has ever come out of a recording studio". Melody Maker declared the Who the band "against which all others are to be judged".

  The Woodstock Festival in August 1969 was a different story. The Who were reluctant and demanded $13,000 up front. They were scheduled for Saturday night, the 16th of August, but the festival ran late and they did not start until 5 am on Sunday. During the set, Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman interrupted to give a political speech, and Townshend kicked him off the stage. During "See Me, Feel Me" the sun rose almost as if on cue, and Entwistle later said, "God was our lighting man". Daltrey still called the show "the worst gig ever played". Townshend said, "I thought the whole of America had gone mad".

  The 1969 Isle of Wight Festival was a happier occasion for Townshend, who called it "a great concert for" the band. He said the field was covered with rubbish left by fans at the end, which inspired the phrase "teenage wasteland" in "Baba O'Riley".

  By 1970 the Who were widely considered among the best and most popular live rock bands. They wanted a live album to show how different their concerts sounded from Tommy. Townshend balked at sorting through the hours of tapes they had accumulated and demanded that all of them be burned. Instead they booked two shows, in Leeds on the 14th of February 1970 and in Hull the next day. Technical problems at Hull meant the Leeds show was used, and it became Live at Leeds. The Independent, The Telegraph and the BBC all consider it one of the best live rock albums of all time. The Tommy tour took in European opera houses, and the Who became the first rock act to play the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. At the Isle of Wight again, before a record English crowd that Guinness estimated at 600,000 to 700,000, they began at 2:00 am on Sunday the 30th of August.

  Tommy made the band millionaires, and each member reacted differently. Daltrey and Entwistle lived comfortably, Moon spent frivolously, and Townshend was embarrassed by wealth that clashed with Meher Baba's ideals. He then conceived Lifehouse, a multi-media project about the relationship between an artist and his audience. He built layers of synthesizers in his home studio, and the Young Vic theatre in London was booked for experimental concerts. The others complained that the project was too complicated and that they should just record another album. Townshend had a nervous breakdown and abandoned it.

  Recording in New York in March 1971 fell apart when Lambert's addiction to hard drugs interfered with his work as producer. The group restarted with Glyn Johns in April. The result, mostly Lifehouse material plus Entwistle's song "My Wife", was Who's Next, released in August 1971. It reached No. 1 in the UK and No. 4 in the US, and the RIAA later certified it 3x platinum. On tour that year, Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times called the Who "the Greatest Show on Earth". On the 12th of December, at the Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, Moon passed out over his kit after overdosing on brandy and barbiturates. He recovered and finished the gig.

  After a long break the group reconvened in May 1972, but they abandoned an album called Rock Is Dead, Long Live Rock! because the recordings disappointed them. Townshend believed Daltrey only wanted a money-making band, while Daltrey thought Townshend's projects were becoming pretentious. Daltrey audited the group's finances and found that Lambert and Stamp had kept insufficient records. The painful end of the business and personal relationships is told in James D. Cooper's 2014 documentary, Lambert & Stamp. Bill Curbishley took over as manager.

  The 1973 album Quadrophenia centred on a boy named Jimmy, who faces a personality crisis amid mod culture and clashes with Rockers in early 1960s Britain. Its music had four themes, one for each of the four personalities in the Who. It reached No. 2 in both the UK and the US. The tour that followed began in Stoke on Trent in October and was beset with problems. Rehearsals were interrupted when Daltrey punched Townshend and knocked him out cold. Backing tapes carried the keyboard parts, and in Newcastle they malfunctioned completely. Townshend dragged the sound engineer, Bob Pridden, onstage, screamed at him and kicked over the amps. The Independent described that gig as one of the worst of all time.

  The US leg began on the 20th of November at the Cow Palace in Daly City, California. Moon passed out during "Won't Get Fooled Again" and again during "Magic Bus". Townshend asked the crowd, "Can anyone play the drums? I mean somebody good". A fan named Scot Halpin finished the show. After a Montreal show, the band, except for Daltrey, wrecked their hotel room so badly, down to an antique painting and a marble table rammed through a wall, that federal law enforcement arrested them.

  Work on a Tommy film took up most of 1974. Stigwood suggested Ken Russell as director, and the cast included Ann-Margret, Oliver Reed, Eric Clapton, Tina Turner, Elton John and Jack Nicholson. David Essex auditioned for the title role, but the band persuaded Daltrey to take it. Some 1,500 extras appeared in the "Pinball Wizard" sequence. The film premiered on the 18th of March 1975 to a standing ovation. Townshend was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score, and the film earned over $2 million in its first month.

  In 1975 Daltrey and Townshend criticised each other through interviews in the New Musical Express. Daltrey was grateful the Who had saved him from a career as a sheet-metal worker. Townshend felt the group's commitments stopped him from releasing solo material. The album The Who by Numbers had introspective Townshend songs about disillusionment, such as "However Much I Booze" and "How Many Friends", and also Entwistle's hit "Squeeze Box". On the 6th of December 1975 the Who set a record for the largest indoor concert at the Pontiac Silverdome, drawing 78,000 people. Townshend had grown fed up with touring, but Entwistle thought the live show was at its peak.

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• 7. Sound and Volume

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  Pete Townshend coined the term "power pop" in 1967 to describe the Who's style. The group started as a trad jazz and pop covers band, played R&B in 1963, and moved to a mod sound in 1964 after hearing the Small Faces fuse Motown with a harsher R&B. Early work was aimed at singles. From Tommy onwards the Who developed softer pieces and turned their attention to albums. Like their contemporaries, they were influenced by the arrival of Hendrix, and lengthy touring toughened their sound.

  The Who were early adopters of Marshall Amplification. Entwistle was the first to get two 4x12 speaker cabinets, and Townshend quickly followed. In 1967 Townshend switched to Sound City amplifiers customised by Dave Reeves, and in 1970 he moved to Hiwatt. The group were the first to use 1000-watt PA systems at live gigs, which prompted competition from bands such as the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd. Townshend and Entwistle were instrumental in making extreme volume and distortion standard rock practice. The members have often said that their live sound was never captured on record the way they wanted.

  On Who's Next, a Lowrey organ generated keyboard sounds in real time for "Baba O'Riley" and "Won't Get Fooled Again". For the second song it was further processed through a VCS3 synthesizer. The synthesizer intro to "Baba O'Riley" was programmed from Meher Baba's vital statistics, and Dave Arbus played the violin solo. Groups had used synthesisers before, but the Who were among the first to build them into a basic rock structure. The sound scaled back on The Who by Numbers and regained prominence on Face Dances.

  Townshend considered himself less technical than guitarists such as Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, and wanted to stand out visually instead. His style evolved from the banjo, favouring down strokes and combining plectrum with fingerpicking. His rhythm playing often used seventh chords and suspended fourths, and he is associated with the power chord, built from the root and fifth. He also made noise by manipulating the controls on his guitar and letting it feed back. Early on he favoured Rickenbackers, which made rhythm chords easy to fret and let him move the neck for vibrato. From 1968 to 1973 he preferred a Gibson SG Special live. In the studio from Who's Next on, he used a 1959 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins hollow-body, a Fender Bandmaster amp and an Edwards volume pedal, all gifts from Joe Walsh.

  Daltrey first based his singing on Motown and rock and roll, then tackled a wider range of styles from Tommy on. His trademark scream ends "Won't Get Fooled Again". After "I Can't Explain" used session singers, Townshend and Entwistle resolved to sing the backing vocals themselves, producing strong harmonies. Biographer Dave Marsh considers the contrast between Daltrey's guttural tone and Townshend's higher, gentler voice a highlight of Who's Next. Daltrey says he is allergic to marijuana smoke, which harms his voice. At Nassau Coliseum on the 20th of May 2015, he smelled a joint and told the smoker to put it out or "the show will be over".

  Entwistle's lead bass playing was a distinctive part of the original band's sound, while Townshend concentrated on rhythm and chords. In 1966 Entwistle was the first to make popular use of Rotosound strings, hoping to find a piano-like sound.

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• 8. Loss and Farewell

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  Allen Klein, former manager of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, had bought a stake in Townshend's publishing company by 1977. Townshend discovered this while taking most of that year off after the 1976 tour. A settlement was reached, but he was upset that Klein had tried to take ownership of his songs. At the Speakeasy he met the Sex Pistols' Steve Jones and Paul Cook, who were fans of the Who. Later he passed out in a doorway, where a policeman said he would not be arrested if he could stand and walk. That night inspired the title track of Who Are You.

  The group reconvened in September 1977, and Townshend announced there would be no live shows for the immediate future. Moon was so unhealthy that touring looked difficult. The only gig that year was an informal show on the 15th of December at the Gaumont State Cinema in Kilburn, filmed for The Kids Are Alright. After 14 months without playing, the band were so weak that the footage went unused. Recording of Who Are You began in January 1978. Moon's drumming was so poor that Daltrey and Entwistle considered firing him, and on "Music Must Change" he was replaced because he could not keep time. A May performance at Shepperton Sound Studios was strong, and several tracks went into the film. It was the last gig Moon played with the Who.

  Who Are You came out on the 18th of August 1978 and peaked at No. 6 in the UK and No. 2 in the US. On the 6th of September, Moon attended a party Paul McCartney held to celebrate Buddy Holly's birthday. At home he took 32 tablets of clomethiazole, prescribed to combat his alcohol withdrawal. He passed out the next morning and was found dead later that day. Townshend issued a statement saying the band was "more determined than ever to carry on", though "no human being can ever take his place".

  Phil Collins, on a break from Genesis, asked to replace Moon, but Townshend had already asked Kenney Jones, formerly of the Small Faces and Faces. Jones officially joined in November 1978, and John "Rabbit" Bundrick joined the live band as an unofficial keyboardist. On the 2nd of May 1979 the Who returned to the stage at the Rainbow Theatre. That year brought the film Quadrophenia, directed by Franc Roddam, with Phil Daniels as Jimmy and Sting as the Ace Face. It appealed to the growing mod revival, and The Jam, led by Paul Weller, were influenced by the Who. The retrospective The Kids Are Alright, directed by Jeff Stein, also arrived. Moon had died a week after seeing its rough cut with Daltrey. In December 1979 the Who became the third band, after the Beatles and the Band, to appear on the cover of Time.

  On the 3rd of December 1979, a crowd crush at the Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati killed 11 fans. The venue used festival seating, where those who enter first get the best positions. Some fans outside mistook the soundcheck for the concert and tried to force their way in. Only a few doors were open, and thousands pushed into a bottleneck. Civic authorities feared trouble if the show were cancelled, so the band learned of the deaths only afterwards. The next evening in Buffalo, Daltrey told the crowd the band had "lost a lot of family last night and this show's for them".

  The early 1980s brought Face Dances in 1981 and It's Hard in 1982. The single "You Better You Bet" reached the US top 20 and UK top ten, and its video was one of the first shown on MTV. Townshend, however, had fallen into depression and briefly became addicted to heroin before cleaning up in early 1982 after treatment with Meg Patterson. Daltrey and Entwistle wanted to tour and play hits, while Townshend wanted a studio act. Entwistle said, "I don't intend to get off the road". A farewell tour of the US and Canada, with the Clash as support, ended in Toronto on the 17th of December 1982. On the 16th of December 1983, Townshend announced at a press conference that he was leaving the Who.

  The Who still reunited now and then. They played Live Aid at Wembley Stadium in July 1985, where the BBC transmission truck blew a fuse and briefly interrupted the broadcast. A 25th-anniversary tour in 1989 had Simon Phillips on drums. Townshend had announced in 1987 that he suffered from tinnitus. Two shows at Sullivan Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, sold 100,000 tickets in under eight hours. Some critics disliked the expanded lineup and nicknamed it "the Who on Ice". In 1996 the three surviving original members performed Quadrophenia at Hyde Park, with Zak Starkey on drums, the first complete live performance of the work.

  A full-time reunion began in 1999, with Starkey as drummer. The Who played a charity show at the Royal Albert Hall for the Teenage Cancer Trust in 2000, and in October 2001 they played The Concert for New York City at Madison Square Garden. In 2002 they prepared for a full US tour. On the 27th of June, the day before the first date, Entwistle, aged 57, was found dead of a heart attack at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, with cocaine a contributing factor. The tour went ahead with bassist Pino Palladino, and Townshend dedicated the first show to Entwistle.

  Entwistle's death led Townshend to rethink his strained relationship with Daltrey, and that led to new material. Endless Wire arrived in 2006, the first album of new songs since It's Hard. The Who headlined the 2007 Glastonbury Festival and closed the London 2012 Olympic Games. A twelfth album, Who, came out in 2019. In 2025 the band conducted their final tour, The Song Is Over North American Farewell Tour. Starkey left and was replaced for the remainder of the year by Scott Devours, who had once stepped in on less than four hours' notice in 2013.

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