They had been queuing up outside Celtic Park, many in their sleeping bags, since before dawn. Local residents, upon opening their front doors, were startled to see so many of them.
Among the early arrivals were a couple from Newarthill, near Motherwell, who were selling coffee, tea and hamburgers from a van. "We've never tried this before", remarked the woman. "We were up all night getting things ready, then we left home at the crack of dawn.
"When we arrived there were quite a few fans there already. Some of them absolutely frozen".
What had drawn the fans from across Scotland to Glasgow's east end that Saturday - June 5, 1976 - was a ten-hour-long concert, billed as the 'biggest open-air show ever'. Tickets had been priced at £4. A few people presumably didn't pay to get in: seven long-haired blokes clad in denim and with necklaces distinguished by a scale of justice symbol. They were undercover detectives; more on them later.
The show was headlined by The Who and featured a host of other acts - Glasgow's own Sensational Alex Harvey Band, and the highly regarded American group Little Feat, their fellow Americans the Outlaws, Widowmaker, and Streetwalkers, which was led by Roger Chapman and John “Charlie” Whitney, former members of the British rock group, Family.
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The show was part of three outdoor gigs staged by The Who under the banner of 'Who Put the Boot In'. A gig at Charlton Athletic's ground, The Valley, on May 31, had led to an entry in the Guinness Book of Records as the ‘world’s loudest pop group’, with a 120-decibel reading at 50 metres.
On the day of the Celtic Park show, music journalist Barbara Charone, who in later life would become a leading music PR figure, wrote an exclusive article for the Evening Times. "Only the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world", she began, "could stand on a wet stage before 50,000 fans drenched from a steady downpour and turn in one of the most brilliant performances of their 10-year career. Only The Who could turn the muddy Charlton football ground into an ecstatic celebration.
"But that's the magic of The Who. And the concert at Celtic Park, or 'Paradise', should be even better. The Who are in prime form. John Entwistle, Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, and Keith Moon play with the kind of enthusiasm normally reserved for bands on the way up".
The Who were indeed in unstoppable form. Their landmark works had included the remarkable rock-operas, Tommy (1969) and Quadrophenia (1973), both of which would be made into acclaimed films, directed by Ken Russell and Franc Roddam respectively (Daltrey received a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of Tommy). Their fifth studio album, Who's Next (1971), had reached number one in the UK - the only Who album ever to do so.
The Who had played the Monterery, Woodstock and Isle of Wight festivals - spectaculars that, in the later words of their manager, Bill Curbishley, "catapulted [them] onto the world stage, and a huge, universal mass audience".
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Constant touring had made them one of the most incendiary live acts in the world, as evidenced by their Live at Leeds album (1970). They were truly a compelling sight. Not for nothing was their drummer, Keith Moon, reputed to be the wildest man in rock music; Townshend was known to smash his hapless guitar into pieces at the end of a show; and Daltrey, like Mick Jagger, was a captivating lead singer.
Townshend's abilities as a songwriter - restless and dizzyingly ambitious - had been immortalised by hit single after hit single, too, ever since 1965: I Can't Explain, My Generation, Substitute, Pictures of Lily, Pinball Wizard, Won't Get Fooled Again, 5.15. By 1976 they had a dazzling range of hit songs to play live. Their most recent album, The Who By Numbers, had been released the previous October.
The Who were no strangers to Glasgow by the time of that Celtic Park concert. They played Green's Playhouse, the precursor to the Glasgow Apollo, in October 1970 (supported by the James Gang, whose leader, Joe Walsh, would go on to join the Eagles) and in October and November 1971. Their subsequent Apollo gigs - in October 1975, June 1979 and February 1981 - are fondly remembered by those fans lucky enough to secure tickets.
The group had by the mid-Seventies been experimenting with lasers during their live shows. As Daltrey relates in his memoirs: "The venues were getting so big that we needed more sound and light.
"John Wolff, our production manager, was like a kid in a particularly outlandish sweetshop. He was experimenting with lasers and hologams, all pioneering stuff, and by the end of 1975 our crew were moving unprecedented amounts of kit from gig to gig.
"We had three argon lasers - one at the back of the stage and two on either side - and they were so powerful they had to rigged up to the nearest fire hydrant to keep them cool", he added. "It was worth it, though. People had never seen anything like it back then. It blew their minds. It was genius lighting".
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Townshend himself recalled: "Charlton is the show that most people I meet in Britain seem to remember. John Wolff created a false 'ceiling' in the sky by using intercrossed laser beams, and as we closed Tommy he slowly lowered it over the crowd. Several people have said that they felt they were levitating".
Before the Glasgow concert, Moon got ready to play by taking a sledgehammer to a giant, fake, Wurlitzer organ which had featured in the film version of Tommy.
The show was watched by an estimated 35,000-40,000 fans. One luckless teen who had travelled from Midlothian was told that his ticket was a forgery and after watching his friends go in, he decided to go drinking. He was arrested after standing on a Gallowgate rooftop and swearing at passers-by. At Glasgow Central District Court he was fined £20.
The Glasgow Herald's Allan Laing reported on the concert. Paradise, he wrote, had echoed to the 40,000 watts sound of The Who. "The hallowed turf was taken over by a huge denim-clad army, all eyes towards the 80-foot stage, suspended across the stand".
Alcohol had been forbidden but some fans managed to get booze past security at the gate. By the time The Who came onstage at 8pm, eight hours after the first band had appeared, a number of spectators were too drunk to enjoy them. Stewards, who received £20 each for their efforts, confiscated what drink they could.
"For just two three-minute spots during their performance", added Laing, "The Who employed new laser equipment which projects and reflects green beams of light across the stadium. The apparatus set them back £100,000.
"When they first tried to use the lasers, two years ago, English local authorities banned them on the grounds that the beams could be dangerous to the crowds. However, the equipment has now been examined by scientists, who have given their blessing".
The Who donated their profits from the tour to charity, with Celtic in line for ten per cent of the gross takings of the concert. Club chairman Desmond White, who was at the gig, declared himself happy with the way it had gone, despite the pitch being densely covered in litter. "The music, of course, was not my scene", he added. Some fans had made off with small pieces of turf.
Laing's colleague Colin MacDonald wrote that the Sensational Alex Harvey Band "evoked powerful and sustained applause". As for The Who, they "gave 90 minutes of high-energy rock'n'roll which keft the crowd ecstatic and, many said, eclipsed even the still-discussed Rolling Stones Glasgow performances [at the Glasgow Apollo]".
The way was now clear, MacDonald added, "for more and, hopefully, even more ambitious events of a like nature to be organised, for Scots fans have shown themselves enthusiastic AND responsible. Only a handful caused trouble".
Drug squad detectives made 33 arrests at the concert. Many of those arrested were young girls. Most alleged offences related to the smoking of cannabis but others included possession of cannabis resin and LSD. It was the highest number of arrests ever made in one drugs raid in the city. The arrests were the work of the seven long-haired, denim-clad undercover detectives.
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Many recollections of the concert can be found today on the internet. One contributor, Alan Davidson, writing on the UKrockfestivals website, had this to say: "Alex Harvey was visually very entertaining, and I liked the set a lot, despite not being a big fan. Little Feat were pretty good, although more laid back, but, by the time it was getting dark we were all impatient for The Who.
Memories of the 1976 Parkhead show
"As mentioned, the lasers were very effective, creating a canopy of light.....but my favourite bit (and my favourite bit of any concert ever) was after the keyboard doodling near the end of 'Baba O'Riley' when Townshend came leaping from the right of the stage as he played a massive chord....there was a great big round flare/light thing which was right in front of us, and it went off as he hit the chord, silhouetting Pete in mid air.....and, just like when you stare at a lightbulb for a while, we could still see a negative image of the scene in our eyes for a good while after.
"Another great memory", Davidson added, "was the generosity of some Glasgow folk beside us who shared the bottle of vodka they'd smuggled in with us, as we'd lost our carry-out to the police......we shared our food with them, and there was a great deal of friendliness in our wee bit of Parkhead".
A second contributor, 'Sailin' Shoes' (named after a 1972 album by Little Feat), wrote: "Alex Harvey was a real spectacle. Not many people were 'showmen' in those days but he and his band were theatrical as well as musically entertaining.
"The overriding recollection for me was Little Feat. It was the first time I had seen or heard the band, and for me, they blew the rest of the bands, including the Who, off the stage. This was around the time of their 'Last Record Album' release and in Lowell George, they had one of best slide guitarists in the world. Their rhythm section was also brilliant. A great day".
Writing on the Glasgow Chronicles page on Facebook, Billy Sinclair recalls: "One of the people I was with was diabetic and took an insulin injection....security must have been closely watching the crowd in some way as several heavies descended on us very quickly and wanted to throw our mate and us out for taking drugs!"
And there's this, from Thomas Brannigan, on the same Facebook group: "Me and my wife worked in the ground selling programmes, the more we sold the more we got paid, great day. When the Who came on, they were supposed to come to dry ice and laser beams, but it was still daylight and you could not see the lasers too good. Still a great show. Someone complained about the show paying all the money and not seeing the light show and will come to see them again. I said to him, 'we won't be fooled again'."
Roger Daltrey, Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow
"You should have been there", Allan Laing wrote in the Herald in 2001. "Harvey was wild. The Feats didn't fail. And the Who were, well, okay. They tried to wow the audience with this new-fangled, never-before-seen, laser equipment which punched green beams of light across the park. Only problem was it was broad daylight and you couldn't see them".
After the Celtic Park show the Who caravan moved onto Swansea City's ground, Vetch Field. The Who then played concerts in the US and Canada.
Keith Moon, however, would not tour with the band again. He died on September 7, 1978, from an accidental overdose of pills he had been taking to assist with alcohol withdrawal. An open verdict was recorded. The rock world, as The Who's website puts it, "mourns one of its favourite sons".
The Who's core today consists of Townshend, who is 78, and Daltrey, who is 79 (Entwistle died in June 2002). Both have written frank memoirs - Who Am I, in Townshend's case, and Thanks a Lot, Mr Kibblewhite, in Daltrey's. Both have enjoyed substantial solo careers, and Townshend's literary accomplishments have extended to books, articles and poems. They have done considerable work for charitable causes, including the Teenage Cancer Trust.
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The Who quietly split up in 1982 but over the years they would occasionally reunite for specific purposes. There have not been too many albums in recent years - the last one, Who, which came out in 2019, was their first since 2006, and only the fourth since 1978.
Live, however, they remain a formidable proposition, as frequent showpiece concerts over the years have demonstrated. They memorably performed a selection of their hits at the closing ceremony at the 2012 London Olympics.
In January Townshend and Daltrey announced a series of UK dates, in which they would be backed by a full orchestra. Their concerts at Edinburgh Castle, on July 8 and 9 will be the first visit to the city in 40 years. The live band includes Townshend's younger brother, Simon, on guitar and, on drums, Zak Starkey, son of Ringo. It would be interesting to know how many of the Edinburgh audiences were at that Celtic Park show, nearly half a century ago.
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