Before Wood established himself with The Faces, he was a prominent figure in the local music scene and witnessed The Who rise from nobodies to superstars. Excerpt from FaroutMag, by Joe Taysom, to read the full article click HERE.
At the time, he was playing with The Birds, not to be mixed up with the American group, and they forged a friendly rivalry with The Who. The Roger Daltrey-led group set a high bar which the rest of the scene attempted to follow, to varying results.
Wood, recalls, “Keith Moon actually sat in with us one night, he used to be a big supporter”. Detailing further, the guitarist continued: “I remember one night, The Who came down. They had a hit with ‘I Can’t Explain’, and they all came in the Ealing Club saying ‘We’re Number One! We’re Number One!’, and we’re going ‘You Bastards!’ from the stage’. We had a friendly rivalry with them“.
While The Birds never had a number one single and lost the feud with The Who, Wood has no animosity towards his old foes. In fact, he even sold his London mansion to Pete Townshend in the late 1990s, and their friendship dates back to when The Who performed as The High Numbers.
“I first met Pete, who is still a neighbour of mine, back in the old Ealing Club days when The Who first had ‘I Can’t Explain’ in the charts. I was in The Birds and they were going: ‘We’re number one!’ And we were going: ‘Fuck off back to Acton!’ We were so jealous. The High Numbers were brilliant, and the early Who, especially at the Marquee, were incredible. They’re still great today, but there was nothing quite so electric as the original line-up.”
“I used to love the way they worked in the studio; it was all about having a laugh. Later, when the Faces came together with Ronnie Wood and Rod Stewart, hanging out with them was the best place to be on the planet. Being in The Who was fucking grim by comparison.”
