The Who On Teesside

The Who’s first gig on Teesside was at Mister McCoy’s in Middlesbrough on 7th January 1966, a couple of months after the release of the band’s first big hit single – “My Generation”. It was a memorable occasion for many people including myself. I was a member of the support band that night.

My time playing in live bands spans six decades (1964 to 2024) albeit with a break between 1973 and 1997 when I was building up a home and raising kids. During my performance years the quality of the gigs I played at was variable. Some were mind blowing but most were run of the mill. Others were quite dire – the type of gig where you want to turn your back on the ten indifferent members of the audience and go home. Thankfully most of the gigs I did over the period were enjoyable.

My first experience of a truly mind blowing gig happened in January 1966. I’d joined Sunderland based R&B band Jazzboard four months earlier. At the time Jazzboard had a good name in Sunderland with quite a lot of followers. However, most of the band’s gigs up to that point had been in and around the town of Sunderland. After I joined Jazzboard, the band’s manager Bert Lowes went all out to raise the band’s profile throughout the whole of the northeast and fill up the bookings diary. Pretty soon he had established links with many northeast promoters including John McCoy who ran Kirk Levington Country Club and Mister McCoy’s Club in Middlesbrough.

Within a few months of me joining Jazzboard the band began to build up a good reputation in the northeast performing at venues further afield than Sunderland. When we heard that we’d been booked to appear at Mister McCoy’s in Middlesbrough on the 7th of January 1966 supporting The Who we were all in a state of ecstasy. A week before that, on New Year’s Eve we’d played only our second Teesside gig at another of John McCoy’s clubs – Kirk Levington Country Club supporting John’s band – the Crawdaddies. It was a great gig. It seemed that the whole of the crowd was on our side. It certainly whet our appetites for the forthcoming Who gig.

Mister McCoy’s Club opened on 3rd December 1965 with a lineup of Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames supported by the seven-piece Soul band – John McCoy’s Crawdaddies. The club promised an amazing array of top bands over the coming months. In the club’s diary were appearances, amongst others, by :

Stevie Wonder, Specer Davis, the Small Faces, Steam Packet, Jimmy James & the Vagabonds and Solomon Burke.

It’s most likely that John McCoy struck lucky when he booked The Who for the January gig. Up to the autumn of 1965, although the band had achieved two top ten hits – ‘I Can’t Explain’ and ‘Anyhow Anyway Anywhere’ and were fairly well known through their TV appearances on Ready Steady Go, they were by no means as famous as they would become throughout 1966 after the success of My Generation.

The Who recorded their first album ‘My Generation’ between April and November 1965. The release of the album on 3rd December 1965 was preceded by the single My Generation on 29th October which shot to number two in the charts. By the time of the Mister McCoy’s gig the single had slipped ten places or so but by this time The Who were much in demand.

So what are my memories of The Who gig at Mister McCoy’s on Friday, the 7th of January 1966?

Well, we travel down the A19 from Sunderland to Middlesbrough in our Commer van. Jazzboard’s personnel is: Bruce Lowes (vocals,) Jimmy Hall (keys), me – Roger Smith (sax), Brian Hughes (bass) and Nigel Olson of Elton John fame (drums). Manager Bertie Lowes is at the wheel. Some of our fans and a couple of girlfriends wanted to travel to the gig in the van with us but with six people plus our equipment it isn’t possible – nor do we want it to be!

We arrive at Mister McCoy’s on Bottomley Street Middlesbrough well on time. This is our first time there. The exterior of the club is quite mundane on a fairly narrow thoroughfare off Linthorpe Road. To its right is another of John McCoy’s ventures – the Purple Onion coffee bar.

We take all our equipment into the club’s main area. The Who’s equipment is already on stage so we set up around that. In those days bands didn’t have stage monitors – just back line amplifiers, a drum kit and front of house speakers. The stage is fairly wide anyway so it leaves us enough room for our gear.

The dressing room or green room, call it what you will, is a fairly narrow room at the end of a longish corridor. When we enter, we expect to meet The Who; Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, John Entwisle and Keith Moon. But they’re not there. The two roadies tell us that the band members have gone off for something to eat and drink and would be back before their set. The roadies regale us with stories about The Who. One of them comments that if our band (Jazzboard) were to be the same position as the Who we would be more successful because we’re all better looking. He emphasises that each member of the Who has some facial flaw making them quite an ugly band – (I’m not sure I agree with what he says).

Jazzboard play the warm up set to a fairly crowded room and seem to go down well. Some of our fans from Sunderland have made the 30 mile journey and are in the audience.

We come off stage and go back to the green room. This time The Who and their roadies are all there. John Entwisle is wearing the Union Jack jacket as seen on the ‘My Generation‘ album (most photos of that era show Peter Townshend wearing it). Pete is wearing a mohair jacket with a long vent in the back. Keith Moon is wearing a white T shirts bearing the text “POW” with smaller letters “Dave Berry” below that – (more about the T shirt later).

After chatting for fifteen minutes or so The Who take their leave and go on stage. By this time the club is packed out. The Who put on a great performance which builds up to the finale – ‘My Generation’. There’s a couple of things in The Who’s set that we don’t expect. We’d heard that in their live version of My Generation Roger Daltrey doesn’t sing the line on the record that goes “Why don’t you all f-f-fade away?” substituting it with “Why don’t you all f-f-f*ck off?”. We’d heard wrong! He sings the same line as the record. Neither does the “on-stage” systematic demolition of Keith Moon’s drum kit and Pete Townshend’s amplification happen.

 

By the time The Who launch into ‘My Generation’ the club’s bouncers are already lining the front of the stage in anticipation of a stage invasion. One of those bouncers recalled decades later: –

”As to “The Who” at Mr McCoys Club, this was the only time that I was ever engaged in “club-security”. Chief-bouncer Chris “Buff” Harding, insisted that us Purple Onion coffee-bar staff joined a hand linked cordon of door staff in front of the stage to prevent any “surge” toward the band. This gave us a magnificent vantage-point of just four feet away from their performance, up on the small two foot high stage. Afterwards, I think most “punters” were secretly disappointed that Messrs Townsend and Moon had not gone into their infamous “auto-destruction” mania with the instruments and amplifiers. Perhaps, a two hundred capacity crowd of young Teessiders on an early January night, was simply not the right “showcase” for that extra-over part of their stage act? The only other factor I recall of that evening, was the “magnificent” vent in the back of Pete Townsends mohair suit jacket. It stretched up, almost to his shoulder blades. Amazing, how little things like that seemed “important” way back then, eh?”

Towards the end of the set the crowd surges forward and some attempt to mount the stage. The bouncers succeed in holding them back. Our manager Bert Lowes, an elderly gentleman built like a brick shit house decides to help the bouncers. When things look as if they’re getting under control, the bouncers try and herd the band back to the dressing room ably assisted by our manager. Bert’s focus is getting Keith Moon off the stage in one piece. Seeing Keith’s “POW – Dave Berry” T-shirt he wrongly assumes the wild drummer he has been watching all night and is now protecting is called Dave Berry and starts addressing him as such – “Are you okay Dave?” “This way, Dave” and so on.

The members of Jazzboard also make their way back to the dressing room. There are a few more people in there now – The Who, their roadies, some of the McCoy’s people and a handful of girls but the bouncers aren’t letting too many people in. Keith Moon is saturated with sweat. He takes off his POW T-shirt, wrings it out and throws it on the floor. He changes into another T-shirt.

Over the next half hour or so The Who and Jazzboard unwind in the dressing room. Other people come and go. Mr McCoys isn’t licensed to sell alcohol so the lights go on in the main club and it empties before midnight. It’s time to dismantle our equipment so we all move out of the dressing room into the empty club. The Who and their roadies follow us.

Nigel Olsson, our drummer is talking to Keith Moon. They seem to be hitting it off fairly well. I ask Keith for a couple of autographs for my girlfriend and sister.

After we pack up our equipment and take it back downstairs to our van, Bert our manager (and driver) is ready to go. Nigel is invited back to The Who’s hotel by Keith Moon to continue the party with him and the band. The rest of us get into the van and trundle back on the A19 to Sunderland.

Jazzboard with Bert (centre back) and the scene of mayhem on 7th/8th January – the Corporation HotelAs regards Nigel and Keith Moon, here John McCoy recalls some of the happenings at the Corporation Hotel, Middlesbrough where the Who stayed after the gig. (The interview was recorded with BBC radio Teeside in 2016); –

The commentator, Bob Fischer first asks John if he remembers the Jazzboard” John McCoy replies: –

“Jazzboard – they were from Sunderland. Nigel Olsson was the drummer. I think they supported the Who the night the the Who came up. Caused mayhem. They did for the Corporation Hotel. I sat in the little side bar with Pete Townshend and rapped on until about 6 o’clock in the morning. He was one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met – extremely interesting guy you know. Mooney was just systematically dismantling the premises. Fire extinguishers going off you know, wrecking the lifts. All bloody sorts you know.”

By all accounts, Nigel Olsson spent the night partying with Keith Moon and the rest of The Who at the Corporation Hotel in Middlesbrough. The following day Keith paid for Nigel’s taxi fare back to his home in Sunderland. The fare was £17 (around £300 to £400 in 2024), an amount Nigel said Keith wasn’t happy about at the time.

What went on that night is something Nigel kept to himself but as the weeks and months went by he did occasionally let the odd thing slip. For instance, every time Jazzboard played in Teesside after The Who gig, Nigel seemed to instantly click with some good looking female. When asked how he knew them, he would say “they were in Keith Moon’s hotel room after the night we played with The Who.” On other occasions Nigel would use the expression “doing a Moon” when referring to various exploits with the opposite sex.

I have it on good authority that among the two hundred strong audience that night there were at least two musicians who found fame on an international level. They are Paul Rodgers (Free and Bad Company) and Mick Moody (Whitesnake). At the time both were members of the local Teesside band – the Roadrunners and were friendly with John McCoy.

As for the T-shirt worn by Keith Moon that night. Well, after coming off stage he discarded the sweaty, sodden T shirt in the near proximity of my saxophone case. Somehow, it found its way into the case before the end of the evening and ended up in my possession.

So as well as the memories of an outstanding gig, I still have a tangible memento. My original intention was to give the T-shirt to my then girlfriend, Julie, but in the end decided to keep it. For a few months after that I wore it at Jazzboard gigs, which proved to be a great chat up line.

I suppose if I could actually prove the T shirt was worn by Keith Moon it may have some monetary value. Unfortunately people didn’t have iPhones or small digital cameras back then to record gigs so only the other three remaining Jazzboard band members and myself know the T shirt’s origin.

In spite of the unknown value of the T shirt, my memories of the gig are priceless.

It would be another two years before The Who performed on Teesside again. On Sunday 2nd February 1969 the band appeared at Redcar Jazz Club. In fact, for the five year period from their first Teesside gig at Mr McCoys in January 1966 through to the end of 1970 The Who only appeared on Teesside three times – twice at Redcar Jazz Club (2/2/69 and 27/7/69) and at the ABC Cinema, Stockton on 22/10/70.