WE WERE ASTOUNDED AT HOW WE HAD BOUNCED BACK

 
Keith seemed fit again and played brilliantly. The reviews were good and the atmosphere was wonderful. Roger was looking Woodstockian, all fringe jacket and long hair. John was playing astoundingly well, coming up with a whole set of new finger tricks he'd obviously spent the summer practising...

The last show of the tour, in October at the Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, was a triumph: we were astounded at how we had bounced back. John and I agreed that we had rarely played better....

Yet I was dreading going home. I couldn't face what I imagined would await me on my return — piles of charity requests, imploring letters from budding musicians, communications from Meher Baba followers, either complaining they hadn't been treated right at Oceanic or hoping I would fund their various projects. There was huge pressure to do interviews and if I did I was afraid that what I said could disturb the Who's new equilibrium. And would Karen see the guilt in my eyes?

Of course I had set myself up for failure; I could never be the right kind of Meher Baba follower, not if I continued to work in rock. Yet rock was where I was meant to be: it was the place where I had to take on board whatever spiritual lesson it was I had been put on the planet to learn.