Beginning in March of 1967, young rock fans in New York City would be treated to live music from some of the biggest names in the business... Mitch Ryder! Wilson Pickett! And then, billed under those and advertised as coming “Direct from England,” The Who, who had never played in the United States before. 

“It was the craziest three weeks of our life,” Roger Daltrey said in an interview in 2018. “I think Murray the K was hoping to do five shows a day. We ended up doing four, I think, and the first one was at 11 o’clock in the morning.” As for their instruments, “we’d spend the next two hours, gluing guitars back together because even us—with the nonchalant attitude to money that we had in those days—couldn’t afford a guitar three times a day.”

A reviewer from one of the lucky individuals in attendance says "I’d seen the Beatles in 1964 and the Rolling Stones in 1965. Both were incredible. But The Who were the most breathtaking rock spectacle I’d ever witnessed. Frankly, to this day, they are the standard by which I judge every live band. And, literally, even sadly, I have never seen their equal." Binky Philips, Huff Post