The Who at Winterland 1968 and 1976 Book Arrives

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A pair of concerts by The Who at the same venue almost ten years apart are the subject of a new book. Teenage Wasteland: The Who at Winterland, 1968 and 1976, from author Edoardo Genzolini, arrived February 28, 2024, in the U.S. and is coming on April 28 in the U.K., via Schiffer Publishing.

From the publisher’s announcement: In February 1968 and March 1976, The Who performed shows in the same venue, almost ten years apart: San Francisco’s Winterland. Generally considered as two marginal years in their career, they are only apparently so. These two years represent a screen grab of the band taken in its purest form: live, and harder than ever, right before and right after the huge success The Who struggled to live with in the years between. Winterland was the perfect setting to see the band live in the city that welcomed them as a second home, San Francisco.

At their first Winterland show in 1968, just a few hundred hippies turn up. In March 1976, the venue is crammed to capacity—5,000 tickets are sold. Still, as the San Francisco Examiner noted, “The Who could have sold eight times as many,” since 43,000 requests for tickets were mailed in. This all-access look at those two shows is a glimpse of what it was like to see The Who at Bill Graham’s legendary concert venue, and features firsthand accounts and previously unpublished photos by fans at the shows, as well as details of the band behind the scenes and onstage. The book’s foreword was written by noted music journalist and author Joel Selvin. It contains more than 500 never-seen-before photos from previously unreleased archives and private collections.

The Who at Winterland 1976 (Photos: Sansara-Nirvana Murphy; used with permission)

From the upcoming book, “Winterland became the quintessential rock [venue] of the ’70s where legendary events took place: the Rolling Stones’ comeback in June 1972, after two-and-a-half years of absence following the Altamont disaster of 1969; the recording of Peter Frampton’s Frampton Comes Alive! album; and the farewell concert of The Band on Thanksgiving Day 1976.”

In 2022, Genzolini published the well-received The Who: Concert Memories from the Classic Years, 1964-1976 that included untold stories and hundreds of previously unpublished photographs. Of that title, Pete Townshend wrote, “Edoardo’s… take on The Who, and on me, is intriguing and extremely insightful. I wasn’t always a pleasant person to be around in the early days. It’s good to see that sometimes I managed to do some decent things for fans.”

Edoardo Genzolini is an author, teacher, and filmmaker based in Perugia, Italy. His books are the results of meticulous archival research on musicians, photographers, and various music scenes of the 1960s and early 1970s.