Credit: Far Out / Harry Chase / UCLA Library
Mon 3 August 2026 4:00, UK
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it is difficult to imagine The Who’s Pete Townshend having many regrets about the way his career has panned out, at least in a musical sense.
Emerging from the underground nightclubs and modernist hangouts of 1960s London, The Who wasted absolutely no time in establishing themselves among the premier rock and roll hitmakers of London’s most swinging of eras. More impressive, though, was the fact that Townshend’s artistic appetite kept The Who moving and evolving through the years, refusing to remain in one avenue of expression for too long, and generating a litany of seminal, groundbreaking albums, rock operas, and legendary live performances.
Among those innovations, The Who can truthfully stake a claim to having invented arena rock. Admittedly, the group were far from being the first band to perform in those colossal venues, or to reach the level of stardom which demands a tour of such magnitude, but they were certainly among the first to tailor their output to that arena environment.
Who’s Next is a prime example of that arena-focused sound, adopting a far grander, more expansive output destined to be performed to thousands at once, rather than a couple of hundred speed-addled mods in the R&B nightclubs of Soho.
Townshend himself has never made any effort to dispute the idea that he was among the first to establish arena rock, telling Rolling Stone, “With songs like ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ and ‘Baba O’Riley,’ I fuckin’ nailed it. There’s no question”.
However, with the ever-evolving sound of The Who, Townshend and the gang soon moved on from that distinctive, pioneering sound, allowing the mantle to be taken up by a multitude of future arena acts.
“I gave that instrument away,” the songwriter added. “But it would be wrong to say that I regret it, because I don’t. I have to look back and say, ‘Well, what is, is.’”
Further reading: From The Vault
In the years that followed that 1971 album, arena rock became far more commonplace, while The Who’s journey continued to dart off in different directions. If there was any aspect of that which Townshend did regret, though, it was the lost revenue.
“Where it really bit for us all was financially,” he affirmed. “Because that moment was one where, instead of playing places like the Fillmore and the occasional arena, the big acts were playing consistently huge venues.”
While The Who could hardly be described as being rooted to small, grassroots venues during the 1970s, they could perhaps have been playing to many more arenas and stadiums had they pursued that ‘Baba O’Riley’ sound even further.
In terms of regrets, though, wishing for a few more bums in seats back in the mid-1970s is pretty minor. After all, The Who have managed to rectify that mistake tenfold by continuing to tour arenas and stadiums across the globe well into their twilight years, multiple decades on from their first ‘farewell’ tour, in fact.
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