Pete Townshend Feels ‘Quadrophenia’ Is Who’s Crowning Achievement

Pete Townshend is gearing up for a busy fall. On October 8th his long awaited autobiography, Who I Am, will be published and he'll embark on a mini-book signing tour, before kicking off the Who's 37-date Quadrophenia & More Tour on November 1st in Sunrise, Florida at Bank Atlantic Center.

Townshend, who recently returned to the band's 1973 Quadrophenia album while compiling last year's "Director's Cut" box set and filming the BBC documentary on the album, Can You See The Real Me?, feels that on nearly every level, Quadrophenia features the Who at their best -- including his finest hour as their leader and primary songwriter: "My pop songwriting method is most elegantly landed in Quadrophenia, which is, y'know, this thing of creating a turn-key -- they offer you an apartment and you walk in, you have a key, you turn the key, you walk in and everything that you need is there; the beds, the linen, the cups, the saucers, the cutlery -- that kind of thing. I wanted to write songs which -- and be in a band, as well -- where audience members felt they could occupy and inhabit. It belongs to (laughs) them. And I think that with Quadrophenia, I kinda pulled that off as well as I've ever done it, I think."

SIDE NOTES

The Who will release its latest vault concert on DVD on October 9th, called Live In Texas '75. The show was videotaped during the Who's November 20th, 1975 concert at the Summit in Houston during the band's tour behind that year's The Who By Numbers album.

On October 31st, the Who's new documentary, Quadrophenia: Can You See The Real Me?, will premiere on VH1 Classic.

The film gives an in-depth look at the making of -- and tour behind -- the 1973 album, featuring the Who's Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey, their manager Bill Curbishley, Quadrophenia engineer Ron Nevison, early Mod "Irish Jack" Lyons, Townshend confidante and biographer Richard Barnes, and rock journalist Howie Edelson, among others.