Today in Rock History: Scot From Muscatine Drums With The Who

The year was 1973, just before Thanksgiving on November 20th, and The Who were stopping to play at Cow Palace in San Francisco.

In the audience, thousands of Who fans, including Scot Halpin, who had just moved to the SF from Muscatine, Iowa. He was accompanied by his friend, Mike.

After The Who took the stage, Keith Moon started having some problems during their performance Won't Get Fooled Again, until he suddenly slumped over his drumkit.

The San Francisco Examiner tells the story, "Then the band went into "Won't Get Fooled Again." Moon reared back to hit his cymbal and went right off his stool."

Two stagehands had to carry him off the stage, and then the house lights came on. Backstage, it was assumed the Moon overdosed, so they gave him a shot of cortisone, and got him back on the stage. Not long later, he went down again.

Pete Townshend started asking the crowd, "Can anybody play the drums?"

Halpin told us in an interview (about 20 years ago now) that he and his friend were at the edge of the stage, his friend arguing with the security guard, telling him Scot can play. Mike made so much of a scene promoter Bill Graham walked over and asked Scot, "Can you do it?"

"Smokestack Lightning" and "Naked Eye," from "Odds and Sods," closing with the anthem "My Generation." He was onstage for about 15 minutes. "I played long enough with them that no one booed and no one threw anything at the stage," he says.

Backstage afterwards, Townshend gave him a tour jacket and some drumsticks, and promised him $1000 for helping out. Then, he told Mike and Scot, who were about 19 or 20 at the time, to have at the buffet table, which they raided successfully.

When they returned to where Scot had left the jacket, it was gone. After answering a request from a columnist, Scot's name got out into the world, and eventually a thank-you note showed up from Townshend. Scot would go on to get an audition, but no job, from Journey, and be named "Pick-up Player Of The Year" by Rolling Stone Magazine.

He never did see that $1,000.