Not a fucking tea party!

Quite simply The Who were the most dynamic, uncompromising and sonically challenging of bands that ever emerged during the British music explosion of the mid-Sixties.

While contemporaries The Beatles sang sweet melodies and The Rolling Stones developed their own brand of American influenced rhythm and blues, it was The Who that crashed onto the scene in 1964 that defined the very essence of the ultimate rock n roll band.

Formed two years earlier in London's Shepherds Bush as The Detours by Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle and Pete Townshend, the band pounded the club circuit as a leading R&B outfit but it was not until recruiting the anarchic Keith Moon to replace original drummer Doug Sandom that they really took off as The Who.

The band's live shows were notorious for their ear splitting volume and wild performance theatrics. Townshend's feedback driven guitar distortion, flying leaps and exaggerated windmills, Daltrey's sneering vocal and thuggish microphone twirls, added to Moon's all-out frenzied attack on the kit lay in stark contrast to the stoic Entwistle who held the collective chaos together with seamless skill on bass. Without fail The Who's gigs would end with the cursory trashing of instruments leaving beleaguered roadies with the near impossible task of patching up guitars, drums and mikes for the following night.

Early hits "I Can't Explain", "Anyway Anyhow Anywhere" and the anthemic "My Generation" with it's anti establishment "hope I die before I get old" motif, synchronised ideally with an amphetamine fuelled mod movement restless for change.

The Who provided the perfect vehicle for mods to express themselves through the power of music, propelling songwriter Townshend as a spokesman of his generation.

"Substitute", "Happy Jack", "I'm A Boy", "Pictures Of Lily" and "I Can See For Miles" maintained chart success but the band's next project was altogether more ambitious.

With the release of the concept album "Tommy", a brutally cynical tale of man's renunciation of spiritual enlightenment, the rock opera was born, spawning the massive hit "Pinball Wizard" and gaining worldwide artistic recognition.

The Who toured tirelessly on both sides of the Atlantic, headlining festivals and making a legendary appearance at Woodstock, before cutting the seminal "Live At Leeds" album in front of a mere 2000 "lucky folks and angels", capturing the aggressive intensity of the band's sound on stage for the first time.

By 1971 and the release of "Who's Next" (the fallout of an aborted sci-fi fantasy called "Lifehouse") the band were at the peak of their powers with Townshend's pioneering electronic experimentation years ahead of it's time on the sequenced synthesiser tracks "Baba O'Riley" and the epic political disillusionment of "Won't Get Fooled Again".

Townshend revisits 60s mod culture as the subject matter for the rock opera "Quadrophenia" released to critical acclaim in 1973 but the band soon began to internally haemorrhage as a decade of rock n roll excess started to take it's toll. By the mid-70s, Townshend's self-destructive personal life and increasing doubts over The Who's relevance was alarmingly evident on "Who By Numbers" while the death of Keith Moon of a drugs overdose shortly after the "Who Are You" single and album in 1978 signalled the end of an era.

Drafting in Kenney Jones (of Small Faces fame) to replace Moon and augmenting the sound with the assistance of John "Rabbit" Bundrick on keyboards, the band soldiered on releasing two further albums and a hit single "You Better You Bet". However, it's fair to say that without Moon the spark had gone and, following a farewell tour of the States, the band finally called time in 1982.

Of course, in typically contradictory Who fashion, there have been several farewell tours since and in recent times the band have been firing on most (if not all) cylinders on the road with the superbly energetic Zak Starkey (Ringo Starr's son) dubbed the "satanic nephew of Keith Moon" a regular in the band's line up, delivering fresh impetus behind the kit.

Not even the cocaine-induced death of John Entwistle on the eve of an American tour in 2002 was enough to stop the beast that is The 'Orrible 'Oo from "getting on with it" and a new album is currently in the works featuring the recently penned "Real Good Looking Boy", proving Townshend has lost none of his insight for what makes a bloody good song. Against all odds (and sods) the legacy continues, thank God.