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In 1965, the Marquee Club was the premier venue in London. Music was
featured up to seven nights a week, and there were occasional afternoon
sessions on Saturdays. There were normally two bands playing per night
and each played two 45-minute sets.

I saw The Who on six occasions during the year, including November and
December dates. On these latter dates, The Who played a one-hour set.
The procedure went something like this: The support band played a 45
minute set and the headliners played their first set, whereupon the
support band went in for their final set, followed by the headliners
again. Everything was usually over around 11:00pm, in time to catch the
last bus home! The Marquee Club was not "licensed" which meant that
alcoholic refreshment had to be obtained in-between sets. I used to go
the "Ship" just up the street and Roger and Keith were regulars!

On one occasion in April 1965 there was a taping for a radio Luxembourg
radio show. I'd seen several of these tapings before and the featured
band normally "mimed"to music. You can rest assured that this was not
going to happen at The Who's session. In fact, they never even played
"I Can't Explain" during the month of April as they probably wanted to
appear as "purists" to their peers in London. I remember hearing a
playback of "Daddy Rolling Stone" at the taping which was yet
unreleased.

The support bands tended to vary, but often it was the "Mark Leeman
Five" and on one occasion it was "Jimmy James and the Vagabonds" who
joined The Who on stage for an encore of "Please Please Please".

I distinctly remember the occasion when Pete first used his VOX A.C.100
on stage. It literally self-destructed during the second number and
real ozone started to smoke from the back. Pete nonchalantly
disconnected the head and chucked the smoking missile in the direction
of the band room and proceeded to set up his old stack while the rest
of the band kept playing. In keeping with tradition, the show must go
on!
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