Hailing from West London, the nucleus of the band has known each other from a very early age, having attended the same secondary school. Roger Daltrey had invited fellow school friend John Entwistle to join his band The Detours and, when they found themselves looking for a new guitarist, Entwistle recommended another boy at the same school, Pete Townshend, as the replacement.  They were on the look out for a new drummer the guy they finally choose appeared at one of their shows and auditioned by almost wrecking the regular drummer’s kit, announcing himself on the scene as one of rock’s most extrovert personalities: Keith Moon. Now an established four-piece (Daltrey: vocals, Entwistle: bass, Townshend: guitar and Moon: drums) the band reverted to an earlier name, The Who, and worked on changing their image and style.

‘I Can’t Explain’ provided The Who with their first Top 10 hit. While a simple enough expression of awkward adolescent feelings, with hindsight, Pete felt the song mirrored his Mod audience’s frustrating inarticulateness. Pete followed through by making a statement that would ally them to their audience. ‘My Generation’ was the ultimate answer – brash, defiant, and undoubtedly, the first truly subversive record to come out of Britain. After some classic singles such as Substitue, The Kids Are Alright and I can see For Miles‘ the band began to lose ground, with their commercial prospects slipping, The Who agreed to let Pete helm an ambitious project about a deaf, dumb and blind boy. At the beginning of 1969, The Who emerged from the studio after six months work with their magnum opus Tommy, which was trailered by ‘Pinball Wizard’.

Quadrophenia released in 1973, was Pete Townshend’s story of disaffected youth tired of running with the pack and finding constant disappointment.  By the time that The Who By Numbers was released in 1975, some critics took it as being the death knell for The Who. It would be another three years before the band returned to the recording studio. The resultant album, Who Are You, saw a much more optimistic and mature Who. It was a huge success and there was talk of a new tour to promote the album. However, shortly after the album was released, Keith Moon died in London and The Who’s future was thrown into uncertainty.

To the surprise of many, the band decided to carry on and recruited ex-Faces drummer Kenney Jones to replace Moon. The Who Mark II couldn't have found a better time to re-establish itself. There were two new movie releases in the pipeline: the biopic The Kids Are Alright and the adaptation of Quadrophenia. In recent years The Who re-established themselves as one of the premier live rock attractions in the world. The tragic death of John Entwistle  on 27 June 2002 highlighted The Who’s unique contribution to rock, Roger and Pete vowed to go on and between John’s death and the late Summer of 2006 they worked on the album ‘Endless Wire’ that may well become one of their finest moments.