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Pete Townshend remembers Syd and early Pink Floyd

Written by Matt

Saturday, 07 July 2007

The Who's Pete Townshend keeps a very active blog, and in a good piece of timing with the first anniversary of Syd's passing, has today posted another chapter from his evolving biography.

"The acidic cusp of 66 and 67 - and not a step further" is a fascinating look at Pete's memories of those days, with a focus on a couple of Pink Floyd's early shows.

As part of a tight-knit group of the main characters of the time, including Joe Boyd and Miles, the new drugs on the scene (especially LSD) played a role in proceedings, and it was due to an acid trip that Pete missed one of the only Who shows of his career. Unable to drive the 300 miles to the gig, Pete instead saw Pink Floyd's first show at the UFO.

"They didn’t go on until after midnight. Syd Barrett was wonderful in those days, and so were the rest of them. I immediately fell in love with the band, and the Club itself, and especially John Hopkins (‘Hoppy’ as he was known) who ran the Club and worked the door."

He also went the following night, and the Floyd were on the bill again. "This time I didn’t use acid and I think I took Eric Clapton especially to see Syd who walked on stage – off his head on acid – played a single chord and made it last about an hour using an electronic echo machine called a Binson. When he did start to play again he was truly inspiring, anarchic and experimental..."

Read the whole chapter over at Pete Townshend's blog.