(Credits: Far Out / Ross Belot / Alamy)
Sun 22 February 2026 16:00, UK
Like many artists at the top of their game, there’s no doubt that someone like Pete Townshend would still have appreciated a little friendly advice from a fellow superstar from time to time.
The Who were perhaps one of the biggest rock groups in the world at one stage, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t face any kind of adversity throughout their time as a group, because all bands have to suffer through the early teething problems of trying to get attention, acquiring a record deal, and then having the added pressure of maintaining a strong level of output in order to convince fans that they were worth investing their time in in the long run.
One of the main struggles that the band faced was having to replace their drummer, Keith Moon, after his tragic and untimely death in 1978, and while they managed to settle on a handful of different players who they felt would be able to carry them through this rough patch, the band could perhaps have benefited from a little more support from their peers in finding the most suitable long-term appointment that could have kept them going for longer.
Not only that, there were often disagreements between members even during the peak of their popularity, as is the case with so many acts who find themselves under immense pressure to perform at the best of their ability at all times. The band did manage to find their way through any tough times in this regard, but they probably wouldn’t have been able to do this had they not had a support network in place that they could rely upon to push them to work through it.
However, other bands probably had it worse than they did and would often crumble as a result of internal friction. This is so often the downfall of many classic groups, and for The Who to have survived through all of the trials and tribulations is no mean feat, and more than can be said of some of their contemporaries.
One prime example of a band with internal power struggles who emerged from a similar scene to The Who was The Kinks, who had the brotherly duo of Dave and Ray Davies at the centre of an ongoing battle for being seen as the primary creative force.
The band would ultimately last from 1962 all the way until 1997, but the animosity between the two siblings is something that has led to there being an irreparable rift between them, and they’ve not performed live since then, despite there being high demand for them to return to the stage and relive their former glories. Townshend is evidently one of those fans who is eager to see them patch up their differences, and revealed during a 2015 interview with Uncut that he’d been pestering them to see beyond their issues and play together one last time.
“I’ve said this to Dave and to Ray whenever I had the chance, usually in emails,” Townshend claimed. “‘You have no fucking idea!’ I don’t think they’ve really played in America. ‘You could go and do pub gigs – that’s all The Stones do – to fucking stadiums full of people. The love, the respect and the passion that you would get and the joy that you would get would just be monumental. Apart from that, you’d come back multi-millionaires.’”
While The Kinks have certainly not heeded Townshend’s advice, they could so easily have owed him a favour in return by explaining that not all things need to return, and that the constant bickering would have been a massive obstacle for them ever attempting to return, much like his own arguments with The Who frontman Roger Daltrey proved to be throughout the lead-up to their own farewell tour. Perhaps it was never meant to be.