Keith Moon, Drummer of The Who, Passes Out at 1973 Live performance; 19-12 months-Previous Fan Takes Over

In Novem­ber 1973, Scot Halpin, a 19-year-old child, scalped tick­ets to The Who con­cert in San Fran­cis­co, Cal­i­for­nia. Lit­tle did he know that he’d finish up play­ing drums for the band that night time — that his title would finally end up etched within the annals of rock ’n’ roll.

The Who got here to Cal­i­for­nia with its album Quadrophe­nia most sensible­ping the charts. However regardless of that, Kei­th Moon, the band’s drum­mer, had a case of the nerves. It used to be, in spite of everything, their first display on Amer­i­can soil in two years. When Moon vom­it­ed earlier than the con­cert, he finish­ed up tak­ing some tran­quil­iz­ers (perhaps horse tran­quil­iz­ers) to chill out. The medicine labored all too neatly. Dur­ing the display, Moon’s drum­ming changed into slop­py and gradual, writes his biog­ra­ph­er Tony Fletch­er. Then, midway thru “Gained’t Get Fooled Once more,” he slumped onto his drums. Moon used to be out chilly. As the street­ies attempted to carry him again to shape, The Who performed as a trio. The drum­mer returned, however most effective in brief and col­lapsed once more, this time head­ing off to the hos­pi­tal to get his stom­ach pumped.

Scot Halpin watched the motion from close to the level. Years lat­er, he advised an NPR inter­view­er, “my pal were given actual excit­ed when he noticed that [Moon was going to pass out again]. And he get started­ed telling the secu­ri­ty man, you understand, this man can assist out. And all of a sud­den, out of nowhere comes Invoice Gra­ham,” the good con­cert professional­mot­er. Gra­ham requested Halpin directly up, “Are you able to do it?,” and Halpin shot again “sure.”

When Pete The city­shend requested the group, “Can any­frame play the drums?” Halpin mount­ed the level, set­tled into Moon’s drum equipment, and started play­ing the blues jam “Smoke­stack Gentle­ing” that quickly segued into “Spoon­ful.”  It used to be some way of take a look at­ing the child out.  Then got here a 9 minute ver­sion of “Bare Eye.” By the point it used to be over, Halpin used to be phys­i­cal­ly spent.

The display finish­ed with Roger Dal­trey, Pete The city­shend, John Entwistle and Scot Halpin tak­ing a bow cen­ter level. And, to thank him for his efforts, The Who gave him a con­cert jack­et that used to be recommended­ly stolen.

As a tragic foot­notice to the sto­ry, Halpin died in 2008. The reason, a mind tumor. He used to be most effective 54 years previous.

If you want to enroll in Open Tradition’s unfastened e mail newslet­ter, please to find it right here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­e-book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you want to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our web page. It’s exhausting to depend 100% on advertisements, and your con­tri­bu­tions will assist us con­tin­ue professional­vid­ing the most efficient unfastened cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to be told­ers each­the place. You’ll be able to con­tribute thru Pay­Friend, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thank you!