Pete Townshend: Surprise pub gig

Pete Townshend made a rare club appearance last Wednesday (October 18th) in the UK, when he appeared on stage to perform a handful of Who classics. The free show, which took place at the Bedford Pub in the sleepy village of Balham near London, was organized by Townshend's girlfriend, musician Rachel Fuller. Townshend performed eight songs in total - including acoustic versions of the Who's "Drowned," "Behind Blue Eyes," "I'm One" and "Let's See Action."

The Who guitarist dueted with Fuller on one of her own songs and tackled some rarely performed solo tunes, including "Heart To Hang On To" and "Greyhound Girl," along with a cover of the Flying Burrito Brothers' "Christine's Song." Footage of the show will soon be online as part of WHO TV, which is accessible through the official petetownshend.co.uk website.

Townshend is currently working on new material for the upcoming Who album, which will might be out before the end of 2006. He told us that he's hoping that all the pieces fall together as easily in the studio as their recent live shows have:
[ click here to listen if you have a Backstage Pass] "What's interesting now is for us to be able to look at that and extrapolate it back, you know, take it back and filter it back into our own experience of what the band is. But when it comes to it, what we do is we show up, we walk on the stage, and we play. And that bit so far has been easy, enjoyable, and really fun. I don't know about the studio bit - that may be easy and fun as well. You know, who knows?"
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