A Fan Drummed With The Who
In rock history, there are far more myths than Cinderella stories, especially when you’re talking about a band as legendary as the Who. But a rare exception took place on Nov. 20, 1973, when Who fan Scott Halpin cemented his status as one of rock’s most unlikely heroes, taking the stage to fill in for drug-addled drummer Keith Moon. This story, unsurprisingly, has taken on a number of variations throughout the years, but now the record is straight through various interviews. The evening began innocently enough. The 19-year-old, then living in Monterey, Calif., met up with his friend and bought a pair of scalped tickets for the band’s show at San Francisco’s Cow Palace — the first slot on their Quadrophenia tour. After arriving to the venue 13 hours early, Halpin and his friend battled the swarming mobs of general admission fans for a spot near the stage as Lynyrd Skynyrd opened up the show.
The crowd rampaged relentlessly as the Who’s set began, so Halpin and his friend snuck to the side of the stage, where they watched the show un-pummeled. Moon, notorious for his excessive drug use and wild stage antics, suddenly collapsed towards the end of the band’s high-octane set, during “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” After being revived, he was brought back to the drum throne, where he continued to play. But he didn’t even make it through the next song, “Magic Bus.”
After Moon passed out for a second time, Pete Townshend asked if there were any drummers in the audience. Halpin’s friend pulled him over to a security guard, pleading that Halpin was a proficient drummer and Who fan, and could easily finish out the band’s set. “The security guard was probably thinking he’s a complete nut,” Halpin told Bloomington paper Hoosier Times in 2006. “But all of a sudden a promoter pops up, and he sees it as a security thing. He’s sort of nose-to-nose with my friend, and he says, to this promoter ‘He can do this. He’s a drummer. He knows the material.’ the promoter looks at me and says, ‘Can you do it?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’”
https://youtu.be/9ri-IIvYKG0
Thrust onstage, Halpin settled into the drum chair with a shot of brandy, with guitarist Pete Townshend guiding the 19-year-old with cues. Though Halpin claimed, over the years, that he couldn’t remember exactly what tracks he played on, we do have video evidence (embedded above) for a loose-but-spirited take on bluesy Howlin’ Wolf jam “Smokestack Lightning” (which segued into Wilie Dixon’s “Spoonful”) and a sloppy version of “Naked Eye,” in which Halpin fumbled through the track’s dynamic shifts.
After taking a bow with the rest of the band, Halpin was led backstage, where he was thanked and given a Who tour jacket (which was stolen). Halpin claims that a whiskey-slugging Roger Daltrey promised to send him a check, though the money (unsurprisingly) never showed up. Reflecting back on that fateful night, Halpin reflected to the Hoosier Times, “To be honest, it all gets kind of foggy because it all happened so fast. I didn’t have time to take it all in. All I was thinking about was not screwing up.”
Though Halpin passed away at age 54 on Feb. 9, 2008, his brief moment in the spotlight lives on as rock’s supreme Cinderella tale