Before I Get Old: The Story of the Who

There are others that would lay claim to it, but this is the definitive Who bio for me. With great interviews from insiders, and a wealth of quotes from the band members themselves, this account takes you there. Only two complaints: Much too much time is spent on the 60's and not as much attention is paid to 70's when The Who was still extremely relevant. It takes up to page 350 to get to The Who at Woodstock, leaving a mere 170 pages to cover Who's Next, Quadrophenia, two feature films, Keith Moon's death, and the Cincinnati tragedy. Also, a revision would have been nice, taking into account the last 25 years (Live Aid, Entwistle's death, Townsend's legal problems, reunions, etc) Perhaps it's time for a sequel? Call it "Some Got Old."

This was the first rock biography that I read when I was only 14 years old and hungry for anything Who. This book changed my life. It redefined the way I listend to and thought about music and of course, the greatest rock and roll band of all time, The Who. My original edition, bought when "Before I Get Old" was first published, is a bit worn out - time, I think, for a new copy to read, 24 years later.

A very in depth look at The Who from their childhood to their "farewell" tour of 1982. Most of the focus of the last quarter of the book is on Pete Townshend, so Roger Daltrey fans might be a little dissapointed, but a GREAT book and a rather easy read. A must for any die hard Who fan.

It seems to me that if you pick up a rock bio and expect to get something even close to the reality of what really went on, you are setting yourself up for a hard fall. Dave Marsh does a really good job, however, at summing up the Who's career and belting out the facts with nice writing and concise direction. You're given behind the scenes looks at a lot of infighting, songs, albums, lives and careers and it all gels rather well together.Marsh definitely has his opinions and is not hesitant in letting loose with them. I say good. Rock journalism is not the place for objectivity, just as rock n' roll is the essential forum to spill out everything you ever thought about everything. He has his biases and likes and it's nice to see because from that you understand that you are reading a Who fan's bio of the band. A much more well-informed fan than most, but basically, a fan. The downside is also an upside. The downside being that almost all the quotes and personal asides in the book are taken from other interviews or films or whatnot, but that's also an upside. You get a collage view of the Who from their early days of snotty-punk-rock and their later days of fried-out elegance. Pound for pound, in my book, the Who were the best band to come from the whole British invasion. And this book is as good a companion piece to the music as you're apt to find. Either it's this or waiting for their respective autobiographies....Then you really won't know who to trust.

The one thing that I really liked about this book is the way the author connects the story of the band with the various musical and artistic trends of the era. He delivers great insight on the band being not only rock musicians, but also thinkers and artists, who had a comcept behind every movement. It also offers great views on their major weakness: their innability to "get along", i.e. working as a cooperative force rather than in isolation from each other. Nevertheless, I can honestly say that is the most authoritative source of information about the history of this great rock band so far