The Life and Legacy of Rock Legends, The Who

Pete Townshend never truly recovered from what happened in Cincinnati. He said later that he felt responsible, even though he hadn’t known about it until after the show. The idea that people had died just trying to see them play haunted him. He wasn’t someone who shrugged things off easily, and this stayed with him.

The weight of it was evident in his interviews, in his writing, and in the silences between songs. The band went on, but something had shifted. The thrill of live performance had always come with risk, but now that risk had a face and a name.