November 1973 ...... Like thousands of Who fans in the Chicago area, I had anxiously awaited the new album from The Who. We were richly rewarded with Quadrophenia, the magnum opus about a mod kid named Jimmy in London in 1964/1965. Although any double album has quite a lot of material to ingest, Quadrophenia is the four sided story of Jimmy's pursuit of his own identity, and among other events, where that identity fits in to the then ongoing Mod movement in Britain. I followed the tale through those four vinyl sides, absorbed by the story and the Who's majestic performances.

When the tour was announced I was elated to see Chicago on the itinerary. Tickets were available through mail order only and I sent in my order the first day they were on sale. I was on top of the world when the tickets arrived.

Thursday, November 29th. A good friend who had never seen the band went with me as we made our way down to the decrepit International Ampitheatre. We found our seats in the north balcony, about half way back from the stage. The Ampitheatre was no place for music and much of Lynyrd Skynyrd's supporting set was lost in the cavernous reaches of the venue. Then on came The Who; opening with "Can't Explain" set the stage for the show as the band was obviously "on" this night. (Pete later said he thought Chicago and Montreal were the two solidest performances of the tour.)

You could almost feel the wind on your face and smell the salty air when the sound effects were heard through the massive Heil PA system. Roger gave one of the best shows I'd ever seen, swinging his microphone in wide arcs, sometimes out over the front row of the audience! The whole band seemed to be reaching for something special that night and The Who on a good night, no a great night, was simply untouchable.

Closing the show with "Won't Get Fooled Again", they exited the stage despite a prolonged and deafening call from the crowd for an encore. We had seen an incedible show and we knew it. The Who would not come back to Chicago for two more years.

The 1973 North American tour got off to an inauspicious start when Keith collapsed on stage during 'Won't Get Fooled Again'. He was carried off, revived in a shower backstage and given a short break before he rejoined the rest of the group who had carried on as a trio. Then he collapsed again, not to return.

Although considered a disaster area in terms of Who concerts, it should be emphasised that much of the music played during the early stages of the show was very good. Particularly notable was 'The Real Me' where John Entwistle's careering bass lines gave the song a manic energy. Quadrophenia progressed well until 'Drowned', which got into the middle solo section before Moon started to flag. The song was completed, however, and Keith then managed to give 'Bell Boy' his usual panache, amending the chorus lyric to "get the fucking baggage out!" Moon's drumming ceased entirely during 'Won't Get Fooled Again' where he failed to complete the solo passage towards the end. With Moon backstage, Pete tried to explain to the audience that there was a problem, concluding by saying: "The 'orrible truth is that without him we're not a group!"

While Pete was standing guitar-less at his mike, Moon reappeared from the left of the stage and Pete then grabbed him and hauled him into the stage centre. Townshend and Moon then grappled for a few moments until Pete - holding Keith in a mock wrestling hold - pulled the ailing drummer over towards his mike and shouted a few jokey comments about Moon trying to bottle out of finishing the gig. Soon afterwards, Daltrey also grabbed Moon and he and Townshend dragged him backwards towards his drums. Keith took all this in good part despite the fact that he obviously must have been feeling lousy.

With Moon seemingly ready to complete the performance, Pete picked up his Les Paul and began to tune it up. Soon after this The Who began playing 'Magic Bus', with Keith tapping together his two wood blocks. When he came to play the actual drums, however, he faltered once more, finally slumping forwards onto the kit amid a noisy climax in which Daltrey threw his mouth organ into the crowd. Roadies lifted Keith from the kit while Townshend started to play an improvised riff, Daltrey ad-libbing some singing. Then, without any interruptions, they moved directly into a drumless 'See Me, Feel Me', which was tightly paced, Daltrey using a tambourine to add some percussion. After the song had gained an overwhelming response, Townshend applauded the audience for putting up with a 75 per cent complete band.

Instead of leaving the stage, however, Pete - tentatively and jokingly - said: "Can anybody play the drums?" Then he repeated the question more forcefully, adding "I mean somebody good!" Soon afterwards Scott Halpin of Muscatine, Iowa, appeared on stage. After a roadie showed him to the kit, Townshend shook his hand and went straight into the riff of 'Smokestack Lightning'. This was a very loose arrangement, and Halpin's drum work fitted in well enough, and it shortly became 'Spoonful'. Less successful, however, was his contribution to the more complex 'Naked Eye', and he failed to provide the contrasting tempi despite Pete attempting to give him instructions. Halpin didn't look at all flustered and established a steady beat during the guitar solo. The second verse was missed entirely and Pete and Roger took turns to sing the final verse. Towards the end, Pete indulged in a mad spate of windmilled power-chords before the drawn-out "it don't really happen that way at all..." passage. Thus ended one of the most bizarre occurrences in the band's career. Pete later explained why they didn't leave the stage after 'Magic Bus': "When Keith collapsed, it was a shame. I had just been getting warmed up at that point. I'd felt closed up, like I couldn't let anything out. I didn't want to stop playing. It was also a shame for all the people who'd waited in line for eight hours" (Rolling Stone, January 4, 1974).

Halpin had bought a scalper's ticket to get into the show and suddenly found himself as a temporary member of The Who! Afterwards he enjoyed the post-show backstage hospitality with the group and then slipped back into obscurity. The incident was captured on camera and can be seen in the video Thirty Years Of Maximum R&B Live.

The Who had sold out all 13,500 seats in four hours three weeks prior to the concert. Lynyrd Skynyrd was the opening act for the entire tour. The whole concert was recorded on a crude 2-camera video system in B&W which was part of Bill Graham's personal archive.

Thomas Scot Halpin has the greatest rock concert story of them all. He went to see the Who andended up onstage as the band's drummer.

It was Nov. 20, 1973, at the Cow Palace, opening night of the "Quadrophenia'' tour. That notoriousshow was the last Bay Area performance of the rock opera until this weekend, when the band returnsto perform it in San Jose.

Nobody caught his name, but everybody remembers the skinny kid plucked from the audience toreplace the legendary Keith Moon -- the one-man lunatic fringe who went down that night likeconcrete, passed out at his drum kit.

Halpin, then 19, in low-slung bell-bottoms, tight T-shirt and mod haircut, coolly took the seat of hisidol, picked up the sticks and laid down the beat for three songs. Then he took a bow, arms aroundPete Town shend and Roger Daltrey, as if he had belonged there all along.

"For some reason it keeps coming up,'' says Halpin, who had scalped a ticket to the sold- out show."It's like one of the few times you could play royalty.'' In the documentary "The Who: Thirty Yearsof Maximum R&B,'' singer Daltrey recalled that when Moon collapsed for the second time thatnight, Townshend called out for a substitute. A sea of hands shot up and a line of drummers formedat the stage entrance for auditions.

This doesn't square with the way Halpin remembers it.

Now 42 and a painter, Halpin splits his time between San Francisco and Bloomington, Ind., wherehe was tracked down earlier this month for one more go- round of every teenage garage drummer'sfantasy.

The Who was the most drum- driven band in rock, with Moon an unorthodox showman who didflips and walked on his drums. He would pound the air and contort his face, but he never missed abeat.

Though his playing was erratic that night, a bootleg recording of the show indicates that Moon madeit through 70 minutes and all the Quadrophenia material, including "Bell Boy,'' his drum and vocalshowcase.

Then the band went into "Won't Get Fooled Again.'' Moon reared back to hit his cymbal and wentright off his stool.

`SUDDENLY THEY PULLED THE CORD'

"The guy was completely a locomotive, and then suddenly they pulled the cord. I thought it wasKeith Moon theatrics,'' recalls Halpin, who was watching from the side seats with Mike Danese, ahometown pal from Muscatine, Iowa, who now lives in Lafayette.

Two stagehands picked up the slumping drummer and carried him offstage, feet up. This also wasnot beyond Moon's sense of drama, but then the houselights went on.

Backstage it was determined that he had probably overdosed, possibly on PCP, or angel dust. Aninjection of cortisone got him back onstage after a 20-minute delay, but it wasn't long before he wentdown again.

When Townshend called out, "Can anyone play the drums?'' Halpin and Danese were already at theedge of the stage.

"And my friend starts saying to the security guard, `He can play,' '' Halpin says. In truth, he hadn'tplayed in a year, but that didn't slow the braggart Danese, who made such a commotion thatpromoter Bill Graham appeared. "He just looked at me and said, `Can you do it?' '' Halpin doesn'trecall his answer, but Danese assured Graham that he could.

"The story was that I stepped out from in front of the stage, but that's not what happened,'' Halpinsays. "Townshend and Daltrey look around and they're as surprised as I am,'' he says, "becauseGraham put me up there.''

With a shot of brandy for his nerves, Halpin shook hands with Townshend, then sat down at his firstdrum set since he left Iowa, in front of 13,500 critics. "I get onto the stool. Was it still warm? Whoknows. I'm in complete shock,'' Halpin says. "Then I got really focused, and Townshend said tome, `I'm going to lead you. I'm going to cue you.'

"I'm laying down the beat. They're doing all their `Live at Leeds' kind of stuff, and then I don'tremember what happened. I guess I played a couple more songs. It was such a weird experience.''

The bootleg reveals that Halpin drummed through the traditional "Smokestack Lightning'' and"Naked Eye,'' from "Odds and Sods,'' closing with the anthem "My Generation.'' He wasonstage for about 15 minutes. "I played long enough with them that no one booed and no one threwanything at the stage,'' he says.

PARTYING WITH DALTREY

Afterward he was invited backstage and managed to get Danese back there as well. They wereescorted into a party room, and Daltrey gave him a tour jacket and promised him he'd be paid$1,000. Danese recalls that "Daltrey was drinking Jack Daniel's straight out of the bottle.''

Halpin remembers mostly the buffet table. "We were about the last ones to go,'' he says, "becausewe're eating all this food and tak ing food with us.''

To do so he put down his souvenir tour jacket and sticks, and somebody snatched them. Then hedrove his Volkswagen Beetle back home to Monterey, woke up his girlfriend and told her the story.

He might have passed anonymously into lore, but pop critic John Wasserman put out an all- pointsbulletin in a column titled "Mystery Drummer Into the Breach,'' and the mystery drummerresponded. Then Townshend sent him a thank-you letter from Los Angeles, but it did not contain the$1,000 Daltrey had promised. -- perhaps his memory was clouded by that Jack Daniel. As a result ofhis fame, Halpin got an audition (but no job) with Journey, and Rolling Stone magazine named him"Pick-Up Player of the Year.''

The Who returned in 1976 for a series of shows at Winterland, and Halpin went down there to seeabout some unfinished business.

Again without a ticket, he waited four hours at the limo entrance until he found a way into the show.Afterward, he found Graham, who took him backstage to meet Moon.

The drummer was his old self, changing clothes in front of everyone, blathering nonsense. "He saidsomething, and I couldn't even figure out what it was,'' Halpin says. Like many Who purists,Halpin lost his heart for the band when a drug overdose finally killed Moon in September 1978.

When the Who documentary aired on PBS a few years ago, Halpin got his moment of screen time,though he wasn't mentioned by name. Somewhere in the Bill Graham Presents archives, a video ofthe whole show exists. Halpin would like to see that, to fill in the gaps in his memory. He'd also liketo see the paycheck Daltrey promised him.

"That's $1,000 plus interest,'' he says. "Let's figure it out.''