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Seeing for miles

Breaking America was the making of The Who. Photographer Tom Wright was there to document it all

Flint, MI

August 23, 1967

“We stayed in Holiday Inns, which were meant to be a home from home so they were all identical for people who lived on the road. I got very fond of them; lots of my early lyrics are written on Holiday Inn stationery. I don’t have any memory of [Keith Moon’s 21st birthday party] other than Keith having an altercation with some fan… I sort of hustled Keith away. Then the police arrived and they were looking for Keith and he hid in my bedroom.”

WHEN it came to the British Invasion, The Who started way back in the pack. On their first US tour in the summer of 1967 they were forced to play second fiddle to Herman’s Hermits, responding to this indignity by blowing the cheery popsters off stage every night with an incendiary half-hour support set, concluding in the ritual destruction of their gear.

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