MAY 25, 1978 – Keith Moon performed with the Who for the last time. It took place when the band shot live footage for the rockumentary “The Kids Are Alright”. In his biography, “Who Am I?”, Pete Townshend writes that, by 1978, Moon’s addictions had caught up to him. His “drumming was getting so uneven that recording was almost impossible, so much so that work on the “Who Are You” album had ground to a halt: “[The Who] had just about enough tracks for a record, with very little additional material to spare. “Music Must Change’ was completed with footsteps replacing drums.” When it came time to shoot live footage for ‘The Kids Are Alright,” Townshend “was terrified that Keith wouldn’t be able to hide his deteriorating condition,” but agreed to give it a try.
The initial shoot was appalling. The band was out of practice, and Keith couldn’t keep up. So they tried a second shoot, filmed at Shepperton Studios on this date where they played a limited number of hit songs before a small audience. “Keith was in a good mood but bloated and unfit,” writes Townshend, “and he found the repeated takes wearying.” Because Moon’s earphones kept falling off, they taped them to his head with thick black gaffers’ tape. In the months that followed, Moon headed to Malibu, California where he tried to kick his alcohol habit and then started abusing medications to relieve the withdrawal symptoms. On September 6th, Moon took 32 tablets of clomethiazole, a sedative meant to help him cope with the withdrawal. The next morning Roger Daltrey, The Who’s lead singer, called Pete Townshend and simply said “He’s done it.”
For more on this story, check out the audio version of Pete Townshend’s autobiography “Who Am I?” It’s read by Townshend himself, which gives it a nice personal touch.
