The Who poster article
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The Who – Maximum R&B
By JP Webber, Music on Posters editor.
At first glance this is another fairly straightforward looking
poster. It’s one big code though for Who fans and moreover
for the people who called themselves Mods. The Who were the leading
Mod band in the 60’s and 70’s, though it was during
the 60’s that the ‘movement’ was at it’s
height in Britain. Basically you were a Mod if you wore a Parka
(a type of coat that later found ridicule as the Anorak), rode
a scooter (a smaller cousin of the motorcycle) and listened to
The Who and ska music. Your arch enemies would have been Rockers,
the leather jacketed, slicked back hair types who listened to
Elvis, Gene Vincent, etc.
Black and white were colours associated with the mods as was the symbol of an arrow attached to the letter ‘O’. The symbol could often be seen festooned on the back of the Parkas, so seeing it on this poster is an unambiguous identification with the Mods. The image of Pete Townsend in full flight with his guitar would be a familiar sight to anyone who’d been to a Who concert and certainly evokes their live performances very strongly.
Maximum R&B will probably only serve to confuse these days. Up until at least the 80’s R&B meant rhythm and blues and harked back to the way that rock music had evolved out of a combination of blues, soul, and rock and roll. The word maximum must, I think, refer to the renowned volume of Who concerts – whatever R&B is in their terms, you’re gonna get it loud!
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